Guayaquil, Ecuador, South America I left the Galapagos Islands today to head back to the mainland. It started with an early rise in Puerto Ayora so I could get packed up and ready to go. I met Rike and Joe at their hotel at 9am and we shared a taxi to the canal, where we then got the ferry to Baltra, and then a bus to the airport. We got to the airport exactly two hours before the flight, which…
Puerto Ayora, Ecuador, South America I had a pretty disappointing morning, but a nice day overall. I woke up at 6am, I felt great, and was really excited to go diving! I went down to the dive shop at 6:50am, and the shop was closed. I can only assume that meant that the Colombians never showed up last night so I would have been the only one to dive this morning. I sat there for about 15 minutes, but no…
Puerto Ayora, Ecuador, South America For the first time ever on my travels, I got food poisoning. Last night was horrific. I was sick all night, getting up every hour, and not getting any sleep. I’m assuming it was food poisoning, because now it’s night time and I’m already feeling 90% better. The problem was that this completely ruined my plan to go diving. I was supposed to meet at the dive center at 7am, so since I was awake,…
Puerto Villamil, Ecuador, South America I had a great day today on Isabela! It started out with a snorkeling tour to Los Tuneles, which is a bunch of lava tunnels and formations. We took the boat out about 45 minutes to reach the site, and then we took a little walking tour with our guide Tamara (the same guide we had yesterday for the volcano) and looked at some of the wildlife. There were a lot of blue footed boobies,…
Puerto Villamil, Ecuador, South America I had a great first day on Isabela, but it was absolutely exhausting! I didn’t sleep very well last night, like I maybe got two hours of sleep in total, so I was up well before my 6:20am alarm went off. I met the guys at their hotel at 7:15am, and was lucky enough to get on the same volcano tour that came to pick them up. It was $30 for the tour that included…
Puerto Villamil, Ecuador, South America I had another great day on the islands today! I checked out of my hostel, met up with Raz and grabbed some breakfast at a local cafe called The Rock. We went by the dive shop and picked up our photos that Leo took of us yesterday, and then headed off on a small tour of the island. The hostel told us that it would be $40, but we went directly to a taxi driver…
Puerto Ayora, Ecuador, South America Today I officially crossed the Galapagos Islands off my list of things to see before I die, because I feel like I’ve seen them properly now. I got to see it on land yesterday, and today I got to see it under water, and it was spectacular! I got up at 6am, met Raz at my hotel, and went over to the dive shop. We grabbed a hot roll for breakfast and then got on…
Puerto Ayora, Ecuador, South America I had a pretty great day after a terrible night’s sleep. My bed in the hotel was really creaky, so every time I rolled over it made a noise and woke me up. That was annoying. So I asked this morning if I could change rooms and got a room with a much quieter bed, so I’ll sleep well tonight. I had breakfast at the hotel, that was just okay, and then I headed out…
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…
Guayaquil, Ecuador, South America I had a pretty bad day today, but it ended better than it started. I got up this morning and found my insurance documents that stated I do need a police report for my stolen items if I want to make a claim. I headed down to the police station, and ended up sitting there for three hours and never got seen by an officer. In the three hours I was there, only two people were…