Santa Cruz

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We wave goodbye to our ship and start our tour of the Darwin Center. They breed giant turtles in captivity as well as land iguanas and release them all back into the wild.

It's very hot as there is no wind or shade. We get to see all the giant turtles except for George. George was hiding today. George is famous because he is the last of the giant turtles on a particular island. When he dies, there will only be 10 species of giant turtles in the world.

The baby giant turtles are so small. The babies' shells are marked so that the breeders know which islands to return the turtles to.

After our tour, we take a bus to a local bus station then switch buses to travel across the island. It takes about 1.5 hours to go across the island. We catch a short ferry ride across the ocean to the Island of Blatra, where the airport is located. It's another 10 minute ride by bus to the airport, and then a mad dash to check in all our luggage by our GAP representative. After everyone's luggage is checked and we have our boarding tickets, we bid our GAP representative goodbye.

We walk up to the plane on the tarmac and board using stairs. I don't know why but my seat is at the front of the plane while the rest of my group is at the back. I sit in my seat and barely get in to it. The arm rests can't be raised and are bent at an angle to squish the person sitting in the middle seat. I hear a lady in the same row as me but on the other side of the isle complain about the middle seat as well. Good thing there is a stop in Guayaquil for refueling or I could be in for a long ride.

Finally arriving in Quito, we all head back to our Hotel and check in. I head out for dinner with the girls. We go to Diablo. It's a restaurant where you can get a set menu. The set menu is all tapas and wine. the tapas are all you can eat and they keep bringing new and different tapas until you are full. There are a few varieties of wine you can choose from. When you are done drinking a particular wine, you can ask the server to change to another wine. It cost $25 USD for dinner, but it's worth it as we eat and drink for 4 hours. Well, we drink more than we eat 😊.

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