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Published: December 7th 2011
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Next day after a lot of waiting at the border and travelling we arrived in Quito at 11pm. We jumped in a taxi and straight to the hostel. We were never so happy to be in a nice hostel, with an incredible view of the snow-capped Andes Mountains. We woke up early and were mesmerised by the view. We had breakfast in the hostel, was expensive but well worth it and we were far t hungry to go shopping and climb the steep hills back to our hostel. & the view made it all worthwhile. We decided after a quick look around, we should find out about tours to the Galapagos Islands. We went pretty much two days researching tours and boats etc. Finally, at the end of the second day, we book a cruise. 6days/5nights on a first class cruise, leaving in two days’ time. We were extremely lucky as the next 3 days were national holidays in Ecuador so booked literally at the last minute. We went to the equator the next day. Was expensive to get there, $0.40 for 1 hr. 30min on buses. We went to the officially site, where the French did their dimensions 250years ago and found it to be the ‘centre of the earth’. There they built a massive monument to mark it. We got our passports stamped there aswell. Apart from that, it was kinda boring. We went next door, to a site indigenous people built 1000 years ago, where they believed the true centre of the earth is. It was proven 12 years ago that they were right all along, as GPS proved it. The French were 300metres south of it. There, we did random tests to prove the effects of the equator. One was the water test in a sink, on the line, water went straight down, about 2metres north of the line, water went anticlockwise, while 2 metres south of the line, water went clockwise down the plug hole. Then we walked along the line, heel to toe, arms stretched out. It was quiet difficult to do, like being drunk and doing the American police check. It was because the pull of force from the northern and southern hemisphere are pulling you to each side. Then we had to balance an egg on the tip of a nail. Here we got another stamp on our passports.
From here, we went and toured the old town of Quito, saw all the famous sites and churches. Then it was time to pack and get ready for our 6am start to Galapagos Islands. Taxi to the airport, where we were met by someone from the yacht, who organised our check in and bags, so that was very easy. After a quick stopover in Guayaquil, we landed in Baltra airport, in the Galapagos. There we met the other people from our cruise, an Aussie couple, 3 English couples, 2 Swiss lads, an Italian couple and a Spanish couple. 16 of us in total. After more buses and boats, we landed at our yacht. What an incredible sight, a 4 storey yacht, with a Jacuzzi and bars and sun loungers. Our room was massive, 2 beds, a couch, table and chairs, fridge and a wardrobe. The en-suite was huge, a massive powerful hot shower, and loads of space. After lunch, we were off to the Charles Darwin centre, to see lonesome George. He was found on one of the islands after pirates killed all the others and is the only one of his bred left. There were millions of tortoises, of all shapes and sizes, from cute 3 month old ones to some that were 160 or so years old. It is very hard to describe the next 5 days. Only words we can think off are wow, incredible, amazing, and breath-taking. We saw everything from blue-footed boobies, to millions of land iguanas, to millions to marine iguanas, to sea lions of all ages, to, basically every animal one can think off. Our favourite part tho was the snorkelling. Considering Jonathan only learned to float 3 weeks ago in Colombia, we couldn’t get him out of the water. It felt like being in one David Attenborough’s BBC programmes. Millions of fish, 6 foot sharks about a metre away that just stare at you and carry on, 170 odd year old turtles, sea lions that come and play with you in the water, up to 3/4 inches from your face to sting rays. That was unbelievable. When I saw it, I was like, “that’s what killed the Aussie, Steve Irwin”, but yet I found myself, along with everyone else following after it as fast as we could. It was about 5 feet wide and 8 feet long to the end of its tail. We followed it for a while, the ground being 3/4 metres deep, then out of nowhere, the ocean floor disappeared, along with our sting ray. Just an incredible, beautiful sight. We had forgotten how cold the water was, so bad infact that Roma was wearing 2 wet suits. & how far we had swam. We looked up and realised we a nice bit out from shore, as we were busy concentrating on our sting ray. We were so relieved to get back to the yacht each time so we could hop into the jacuzzi to warm up. We watched blue footed boobies diving for food in pairs. The pink flamingos were just breath taking to look at. On one of our island trekking hike, we visited Darwin’s toilet. Around here nearly everything is named after Charles Darwin (he discovered his theory of evolution here in the 1500’s). On one of the days aboard, it was Tim’s birthday so Jonathan found a place to buy balloons as a surprise for him. The amount of animals and different varieties were just unbelievable, I will definitely be back here again in the future, without a doubt. Could not recommend this place highly enough. Unfortunately the 6 days were up and it was time to say goodbye to Galapagos Islands and soon, Ecuador. We flew back to Guayaquil and headed for the bus station. When we were in the airport we priced flights to Lima but they were over $500. We found the only bus heading south, a 14hr night bus to Chiclayo in Peru.
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