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Published: December 3rd 2018
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Up at 03:00 th his morning for a 04:00 pickup. We picked up another couple, Rob and Steph, two doctors from the UK who are currently living in Australia. They have been in Hervey Bay hospital but moving to Melbourne when they return. They are also on the same catamaran as us, Nemo I for Galapagos. The driver as usual came in with us to help with check-in until a rep from Nemo I took over. All Galapagos visitors have to first check-in at an entry office where we paid $20. Daisy and Steph were told to wait there in line while Rob and I took our luggage to the check-in counter for the flight. After that we all had to go to an ATM to withdraw more cash as another girl we met, Hayden, an optometrist from the UK now living in Newcastle, England was told you need about $400 each to pay for possible extras in the Galapagos and there are very few ATMs and they sometimes do not have enough cash in them. After that we couldn’t find the Nemo I rep. so assumed everything was in order and we all went to the appropriate gate for our
flight. Daisy and I shared a ham and cheese croissant and coffee for breakfast and then we all boarded the plane for the 40 minute flight to Guayaquil before the 100 minute flight to Baltra airport in the Galapagos. We also met Florian and Miriam from Berlin who are both sports journalists.
Everything was going according to schedule as we landed and were told to stay on-board if you were flying onto Galapagos. Then we were told to unfasten our seat belts while the plane re-fueled. Some new passengers came on-board and just after they had settled down, there was announcement that due to technical difficulties, there would be a delay and everyone had to now disembark. So we all went off and waited in the lounge. By now about 60 minutes had elapsed when they announced that the flight was now re-scheduled to 13:30 which meant a delay of about 5 hours. The others contacted their travel agents and were assured that as there were 7 of us on this plane the boat would be waiting for us. We then found out that we could get a lunch voucher for $15 each which we duly did. Luckily, we
had free internet access to use and at 11:30 we ventured out and looked at our lunch options. Rob, Steph and Hayden joined us as well and after that it was a short time to wait for the flight.
We finally arrived at Baltra Airport at about 15:00 and were met by our Naturalist Guide, Fabian, who got us organized onto a bus for the short drive to the Nemo I catamaran, our home for the next 7 nights.
They had saved us some lunch so we all had a second lunch while the catamaran made its way to our first stop at North Seymour Island, where we got our first taste of Galapagos wildlife. Even the landscape was fascinating , the colour and the starkness were different to anything else we had seen, prehistoric looking, and it was a great introduction to the islands as we were only a couple of metres away from all the different species of wildlife.
We stayed on the island for about 90 minutes. The rule is that everyone must vacate the islands by 18:00. We then returned to the Nemo I and had the first of our briefings for Day
2. Fabian explained what the activities were and also gave us information about the islands and wildlife. After that was dinner which was delicious. We also got to know the other participants on the boat who had been patiently waiting for us, Thijs and Julius, friends from Holland, Yael from Israel, Dennis ( a film editor) and his wife, Elisa ( Admin Manager) from Germany and two girls, Signe and Louisa from Denmark. We then started going to the next island and as we did not get much sleep the night we turned in early before we started getting sea-sick, which was a good move.
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