Why am I always rushing to get out the door?
January is usually dark and cold. Oddly enough we had a few spikes of warm weather (enough to melt the snow) to be thrust back into the cold the following days (think sheer ice). So the idea of going near to the equator sounded delightful, but before you go you have to pack and skedaddle. The morning of leaving I was rushing around, I had completely spaced out that my lovely pet Nanny, Julie, would be coming by daily to take care of my little monsters and therefore would need to ice skate down my icy sidewalk. That morning I get to realization I don’t have enough ice melt to cover the walkway, so I had to make a pitstop to the market to pick some up and dump some over the way. Apparently the realization that I would also need to use said walkway when I leave my house as I am not planning on driving down to the airport, escaped me until this time as well. Anywho, so finally my Uber arrived, late, I head out the front door to only realize when I get outside I forgot to close the garage door. So I put my bags down in the driveway. Go into the garage and close the door. I started to bound out the garage, figuring I would jump over the sensor and stopped. No. On the other side of said jump is sheer ice, this would not end well. So I had to go back into the house back through the front door and over the icy walkway to get back to the driver. So one would think the driver would have maybe gotten out of the car during this time and put my bags in or to help me with the bags at some point, but no, he just sat there like a lump. So I grab my bags and go down the driveway, which is at a slight angle downwards. Now picture this with the rushing and the bags slung around my arms swinging away, what happens next? Thunk, down I go, smack on my ass, crunch on the ground. Just how I wanted to start the day, slipping on a patch of ice.
Quick pit stop to meet up with Cecilia we are off on our way. Thankfully our flights aren’t too bad. We fly from Minneapolis down to Atlanta and from Atlanta we will fly direct to Quito where we will stay overnight. On our layover in Atlanta we grabbed a quick snack of a savory crepe at one of the shops. I know most people think of crepes as more sweet for dessert but I enjoy a nice savory crepe. Apparently this place while they have savory crepes lend themselves more to the sweet side as the crepe was pre-made with cinnamon in the batter which did not lend itself to a nice blended flavor with the one I have chosen. So if in Atlanta, skip the crepe place. We had hoped to find a express spa or massage place while on our layover but in the terminal the flight to Quito was out of did not have one so we just hung out in the Delta SkyClub. Atlanta, again we are disappointed in you. The SkyClub was packed, which is fine, but there was no one making rounds to pick up any dirty dishwares, nor a place to return it to. However there was wine, popcorn, veggies and cookies so we made the best of the layover, even if it was delayed.
The Almighty Stamp
So I don’t know the logic, even though I reached Platinum status before Cecilia did last year, she got the bump up to 1st class, whereas I did not, so in our respective sections of the plane we flew to Quito. Our flight got in around midnightish, we got our next stamp in the passports and jumped into a cab to make our way to our hotel. We dogged moments of downpour rain to nothing to downpour again during our 40 minute drive to the hotel. Upon arrival, they were shut down and locked up for the night, but a few beeps later the night manager came to fetch us. Apparently, he was told we were no longer coming tonight and had closed up. While he made arrangements for our room I noticed the announcement for our group on our meetup time in the morning which was set for 4:30 AM. Considering it was just past 1, we were counting on less than 3 hours now to sleep. We ended up setting ourselves up for a 3 or 3:30 AM wakeup call so we could repack and rearrange our bags, become awake/human and be in the lobby before 4:30, as we didn’t want to be those people who were late making the others wait for them.
Sleep, sleep was not my friend. Between the rain, the street noise and the animals, I just lay there letting the minutes tick by until it was time to go. Heading back down the stairs we are greeted with other bleary eyed individuals who will all become our friends along our trip. Unfortunately 2 people in our group had missed their flight and would be looking to connect up with us a few days into the trip, I am thinking these are the people the night manager had confused us with.
Off we went back to the airport we just departed from and were ushered through to get tickets and to drop off our luggage. Waiting for the airport we all started to get to know each other while we were admiring the stylish flight attendants with their smashing outfits. We all chuckled as we were called up by zone to get on the plane to just go on a bus where the previous zones were and we were bussed all of 100 or so feet to the plane which we could have easily walked to.
Our flight was generally uneventful, we had a stopover for about 45 minutes in Guayaquil to pick up additional passengers and stock up the plane for deliveries for the islands. I didn’t grab any of the fun video we were treated to but as we were about to land we all enjoyed a lovely educational cartoonish video teaching us how to handle ourselves in the islands, mostly how to ensure we are protecting the islands and its inhabitants. When we landed we watched as the flight attendants opened all of the overhead compartments and effectively bug sprayed everything down to ensure we weren’t bringing any stowaway invasive species onto the islands.
Santa Cruz
Once off the plane we were ushered through the queue to enter the parks which contain an entry fee and even more fun another stamp in the passport! We met with our guide for the week, Alex, who got us all situated to go. We landed on the island Baltra and needed to take a little ferry boat taxi to cross the small channel to arrive to the island Santa Cruz where we met with our transport for the duration of our time on Santa Cruz.
We all chimed off who we were, where we were from and what we were hoping to see/get out of the trip to the Galapagos. All of us were pretty much of the same mindset that we wanted to see all of the animals.
- Vicki and Mick who are Irish but currently live in Australia
- Michelle and Mike from the German part of Switzerland
- Alex and Lucia who are also from the German part of Switzerland
- Hilda who is from the Netherlands
- Then it was Cecilia and myself, Americans 😀
We arrived at our accommodations for the evening, which was our campsite. We got the initial lay of the land but were asked to quickly get ourselves prepped to head out for the day, so we needed a water bottle, cameras, sunscreen, light rain jackets, etc. etc. At this time 3 other girls joined us. Anna and Kajsa who are from Sweden and Nitaya (Tay) who is from Australia. Our camp site was setup with a large room for meals where we could refill our water bottles and store our valuables, around the back was the storage area to store our larger bags and then in the back was where our tents were for the night.
Visiting the Highlands
Before we left we had a lunch, where we all fell in love with their pico type sauce (Aji) and put that on everything. We started our adventures off at the nearby crater just outside of our campsite then made it down from the highlands a bit to visit El Chato 2 Ranch, which is a tortoise ecological reserve. Quickly we are discovering that the weather reports we were checking before we left, which had it overcast and anywhere from low to upper 60’s the majority of the time we were on the island, was a lie. It was sunny and sweltering hot but that’s okay, its better than the icy retreat I have at home.
First thing we were to do was to put on these mud boots (which did not breathe at all, think very, very sweaty) as there can be quite a bit of tortoise poo about and we were heading down first into the lava tubes. So we headlamped up and went down, down, down into the depths of darkness to stand in these formerly owned lava tunnels. There was even a 2 leveled lava tube.
Upon the ascension back into daylight we quickly were visited with the famous giant tortoises and had opportunities to see some of the Galapagos finches, warblers, egrets and some of the invasive species that were brought onto the island the Smooth Billed Ani, which were brought to the island to help the farmers as they like the grasshoppers and such but unfortunately they have taken the main food sources of the natural inhabitants so there are discussions around how to eradicate them from the islands.
Afterwards we left to go to the hilltop to look over the scenery of the islands, but upon returning back to the starting point the van that dropped us off (which beforehand we were told we can leave our items in) wasn’t there. So we strolled down the hill and arrived to our campsite to wonder, okay where is the van, did he drop off our stuff somewhere? Nope, we can’t find anything. Both Cecilia and I left our bags on there, so we were without some key essential items (money, water bottles, charging cords, etc.)
Alex got on the phone had a heated discussion and then he and the owner of the campsite took off and some time later returned with our items. Apparently there was a miscommunication and the driver thought he was done for the day. The reason the conversation got heated in the back is that he wasn’t initially answering his phone when Alex tried to reach him.
A quick attempt at a shower (water was super cold and not strong at all), I got changed over for the evening as a chill was settling in the air. We all had a chuckle at dinner wondering what it was we were eating as the lighting overhead at dinner was very, very yellow it was hard to tell but they had that Aji there so after a few refill requests we all chowed down.
We settled back into our tent area and took to hanging out and discussing clowns, horror stories, etc. at the campfire, some of the horror stories did include a little political talk but it was mostly around the movies that freak Cecilia out. I was thinking of doing some night star photography as the night sky was so clear but after not having slept for 2 days I was done so off I trudged into the tent. The tent by the way did have a mattress pad of form and sleeping bags but beyond the 2 sleeping bags there wasn’t room for much more, we were in there tight.
I woke up at some point in time of the evening, thinking Cecilia was tangled and almost strangling herself in her sheet that I reached out in a half sleep state and she thinking of all of the creepy clowns shouted something and we both quickly went back to sleep. Only to laugh and chuckle in the morning.
2 Meters!
Roosters. Why are there always Roosters? 5 AM we get a wake up call from our bird friends and the day starts. I reorganized my bag as we were departing this location today and we took off after breakfast.
We dropped our luggage off closer to the pier so we could off exploring and we starting at the Charles Darwin Research Station and saw all of the large and baby tortoises. They have a breeding center so they can protect the babies until they are older to release back to their respective islands and locations. At one point we had to enter a climate controlled area so we could visit Lonesome George (the last of the type of Tortoise from Pinta), he had passed a few years back but they have him forever enshrined. They also had another last of his kind tortoise, who was very much still alive, hanging with all of the ladies so maybe they can save out that type of giant tortoises. I didn’t know there were so many different varieties. While at the research center we learned that Darwin was only on the islands for about 5 weeks, which is where his theory of evolution started all with a few finches. The finches were key as their life span is about 5 years so you can see how evolution had taken hold much faster than if they lived for about 50 or so years. These finches had different beaks to adapt to their location. Then of course there are the iguanas who have also adapted as they have the only swimming marine iguanas which are abundant around the islands.
After leaving the research center we were off to visit the town and to grab some lunch before we departed to our next island. On our way down we popped down this alley way where we were treated to seeing one of the iguanas just swimming away, lots of birds and brightly colored crabs. Continuing on we stopped at the fish market where all of the pelicans were hanging about trying to get a little morsel, but the luckiest of them all was the sea lion who stood just behind the ladies inched up as close as possible to suck down a few treats. While we were admiring this we also noted a sting ray, or rather marble ray just swimming in the lagoon.
It was getting close to time to leave so we stopped for a bite to eat, burger and fries and we all enjoyed the local brew, Endemica, a very nice blonde ale. What can I say blondes are hard to resist, even for me. Ha!
After grabbing our bags we stopped at one of the piers across the way, a few from the group were having fun taking pictures of the sea lions there. Then some old English guy starts to yell, “Can’t you Read? It says 2 meters! Stay 2 meters away from the animals.” Well buddy no one tells the animals that as they come right up to nuzzle upon you, so we figure as long as they don’t look distressed and are trying to get away there is a little leniency. What are we supposed to do, run away when they come up to you?
Anyways, that was the end of our time at Santa Cruz for now, we would return for another day at the end of the trip but it was time to shove off and head to Floreana.
And now our favorite catch phrase is with us. 2 Meters!!!!