Blogs from San Cristóbal Island, Galápagos, Ecuador, South America - page 2

So yeah....apparently sharks in the Galapagos are vegetarians, or so I have been told by Miguel who owns the house where I am staying. He, his wife Marisol and 11 year old son Areal told me this with straight faces and expected me to believe them. Problem being that I may have been misunderstanding their English (or their Spanish) as is often the case when things are lost in translation. Either way I didn't believe them! But I am getting ahead of myself, as usual. Here I am! in the most famous archipelago in the world!!! I can't even believe it myself. I have been here now for 10 days and still find that I am pinching myself nearly every day. The flight from Quito started off a little stressful with the traffic absolutely chockers. Let ... read more

We awoke early yet again, and found a real coffee shop with free Nescafe refills that was open before 8, a rarity! We headed out to the Galapagos Interpretation Center just a 15 min. walk outside of town, and walked through its fascinating displays. I learned many more surprising details of the history of the island that were not covered in my Lonely Planet travel guide, or in my internet browsing. The Galapagos were really first used as convenient food & water resupply point for late 18th century buccaneers & whalers, where sea lions, penguins, & even giant tortoises were butchered for food & then later as a penal colony for Ecuador until 1959, where some of its convicts participated in a utopian experiment in rehabilitation, resulting in failure and the murder of the founder. The ... read more

San Cristobal Island We flew in to the Galapagos at just about noon today, and headed straight for the boat that would be our home for the next 3 days. Our naturalist guide, Javier, grew up in the Galapagos and knows everything about them. We had a great lunch, and checked out our nice rooms, complete with a windowed side for optimal viewing! Sea Lion Island We landed on a small island here, covered with Sally Lightfoot Crabs. There were Sea Lions everywhere! It was hard not to step on them... they don't move and don't even wake up from their naps when you step right next to them. We saw many Blue Footed Boobies, who nest on the island. They always have two chicks, but spaced several days apart, and its ... read more

Today we got up at a leisurely pace and headed down to Galapagos Fishing Adventures by 8:20 to let them know we were ready for our snorkel/dive trip. We did not need to be there for another 25 minutes so we went across the street and upstairs to a restaurant for breakfast. Another continental breakfast with a banana milk shake (gross in Sarah´s opinion). About 5 minutes before 9 the tour guide rushed us out of the restaurant, resulting in Sarah having to chug hot coffee. And of course, two minutes later we sat at the dock waiting for 20 minutes for everybody else to show. At the dock we met a really cool older couple from Australia. They had rented out their house and were traveling for a year solely on the rental income. Nice! ... read more

We woke up this morning and headed down to the dock to find a 7am water taxi that would take us to San Cristobal. We had seen ads for $40 round trip so that is what we were shooting for. Turns out those ads are to Isabela and not San Cristobal and there is only one boat that makes the trip at 7am in the morning and it was full. Bummer, we had woken up so early. Instead, we bought round trip tickets leaving at 2pm that afternoon, the next departure. We took our bags back to the hostal for the day. After a poor imitation continental breakfast at a restaurant across the street from our favorite, we set off for the Charles Darwin Interpretation Center. This time we wanted to do the whole tour, which ... read more