Puerto Ayora, Ecuador, South America

I actually got to do something today I’ve been dreaming about for more than twenty years, I flew to the Galapagos Islands. It is absolutely amazing to be here, I couldn’t be happier.

My day started out with a really good breakfast at the hostel of strawberry-banana french toast with juice, and then a taxi waiting for me to bring me to the airport at 8am. Guayaquil has a pretty small airport, and luckily most of the people are going to the Galapagos Islands from there, so some people were able to help me out. Before checking in for my flight, I had to bring my bags through a scanner machine for a quarantine. I then had to get in another queue to pay $10 for something, I don’t really know what. They asked how long I was going to be in the islands for, and what I’d be doing, and then I had to give them $10. It seemed like a pointless step, but whatever.

While I was in line I met an Aussie guy who is traveling on his own as well, named Razali. We were on the same flight so we stuck together and grabbed a beer after we checked in. It was good to find someone else who was on relatively the same path that I’m on. He’s a really nice guy and we’re both looking to do the same kind of things on the island in the next few days, so we’ll stick together.

The flight to the island of Baltra was great! I got on the Tame flight and found that my seat was broken and was stuck in the recline position. I told the cabin steward and he moved me to a window seat in First Class! Not a bad way to be taking this dream flight to the Galapagos Islands! I met up with Raz after the flight and we got our luggage (after each individual bag was checked by a sniffer dog), and hopped on a free bus to the ferry port. It was then a five minute ferry to get to the island of Santa Cruz, and then we had to get a taxi to the city on the island called Puerto Ayora. We found a french couple who were looking to do the same thing, so we split the $20 taxi ride and ended up in the city. The drive was really nice and showed off some of the surprisingly arid scenery at the north of the island, and how it progressively got greener the further south we moved.

I checked into my hotel, Hotel Espana and I’m pretty happy with my room. It’s nothing special, but it has A/C and a double bed, so it’s good enough for me. I met up with Raz for lunch and then we explored the town a bit. It’s really small, so we walked around to get our bearings. We also checked out a few different dive companies and found the one we are going to go with on Sunday. We are joining Albatross Diving to go to Floreana. It’s pretty far away by boat, but the guy said this was our best bet for a one day dive from Santa Cruz.

I met up with Raz for dinner and he wanted to try some of the fresh fish from the market, so I sat with him while he had that, and then we went to a bar where I got something to eat. Near the docks today we saw a few small iguanas and some crazy birds going nuts for food in the water. We are going to explore the island a bit more tomorrow, so fingers crossed we will see a little more wildlife that this place is so famous for. We’re also praying for better weather because the rain was on and off for most of the day, so hopefully it will be blue skies tomorrow when we’re trying to explore!