The Asian Invasion of Ecuador: Galapagos Islands... sea lions, marine iguanas and no ATMs

catching the ferry from Baltra Island, where the airport is,

to Santa Cruz

cookies on the flight to the Galapagos

A conversation with the hotel owner upon arrival on Isabela island

Us: "where is there an ATM in town?"
Hotel owner: "no hay, solo moneygram" (there aren't any, only moneygram)

Us: " you can't be serious" - we had about $60

We've been looking forward to our trip to the Galapagos for months now. After 3 flight changes (trying to unsuccessfully register our visas), we finally made it to the island of Santa Cruz on June 21st and the largest city of Puerto Ayora (PA) It was cloudy when we came in and our first impression of the town wasn't a good one. We were already a bit sour about having to pay the $100 national parks fee right when we got off the airplane (while the locals paid $5). Oh yeah and we paid $10 for a tourist card back in Quito before we even got on the plane.

the biggest town in the Galapagos, Puerto Ayora

In PA, water didn't look turquoise green as I expected, it wasn't full of fish and in fact, there was a considerable amount of garbage washing ashore. The main street is aptly named Charles Darwin (along with everything else from shops to restaurants) and is full of hotels/tour operators. They offer scuba diving, snorkeling, day tours, multi day cruises, bike rentals... And a room.

Due to my penchant for sea sickness, we decided to skip the traditional boat cruise and island hop while doing day tours. The cruises are pretty pricey as well, running around $200 a day for a lower class boat. But this meant I still had to take a 2-3 hour boat rides between the islands. I hoped I brought enough Dramamine.

careful where you walk, you might step on one of these

Our first tourist site was the Charles Darwin research center, a short walk from town. At least this was free. On the way there, we saw our first wildlife, marine iguanas just basking in the sidewalks. You could literally step right over them. At the research station, we saw some land iguanas and of course the giant tortoises. We're not sure if we saw Lonesome George or not because there were supposedly him and 2 females in his pen but we only saw 2 tortoises. A couple days later we heard that he died so not sure if we saw him or if he was already dead.

This might have been Lonesome George
before he died a few days later

lava tunnels

Couple other cool things we saw were snorkeling at "Las Grietas" (the crevice) which was a cool slot canyon with snorkeling in between. We also climbed up on the rocks a little bit and cliff jumped. We were amazed that we had the whole places to ourselves and then about 30 minutes later, a group of screaming kids came as we were getting out of the water.We also went to Tortuga Bay which is known for its white sandy beach and surfing, unfortunately the waves weren't really good so I didn't get a chance to shred. We also visited the lava tunnels which was ok.

Pelicans waiting for the skin from the fish
that the fishermen are gutting

Perhaps the most enjoyable moment in PA was at the fishing dock. We were walking by on our way to a coffee shop when we noticed the fishermen cleaning their fish and right behind them were a flock of about a dozen pelicans, some iguanas and one sea lion. The fishermen would clean the fish and throw the skin backwards and the animals would fight viciously for it. At one point a pelican had the skin in its gullet with a bit of skin hanging out and it resulted in other pelicans trying to steal it away including another pelican putting its beak around the entire head of it (sea lion gave chase too). And the sea lion, would wait patiently right behind the fisherman, like a cute puppy, begging for food. There were a couple of fishermen so the sea lion would slide around begging from all of them. It got bored really quickly and laid down for quick nap if there was any lapse in action though. It was quite an entertaining 10 minutes or so to watch this whole thing occur.

pelicans fighting for fish skin

Unfortunately for me, I spent 2 of the 4 days in PA confined to the hotel room with the traveler's bug, yup vomiting and you know the other. I saved some $ by not eating for 2 days though... If thats a positive...

Next was the island of San Cristobal. We had inquired at our hotel reception/travel agency about buying this boat ticket prior, and they told us to just show up at the dock a half hour before and not worry about it. At least that's what Liz and I thought they were telling us. When we showed up at the dock, it was full of people and a long line to get your bags inspected for fruits (to check for transfer of invasive species from island to island). We just thought we would get in this line and pay the boat captain when we get on the bost but when I asked a local standing in line, we were informed that we have to go to a certain ticket office to buy tickets. So we hurriedly walked over to there only to find out that there was no more space on boats to San Cristobal but space to Isabela. Isabela here we come!

The beach on Isabela island, very peaceful unlike other islands

It is the largest of the island encompassing roughly half the land mass but isnt heavily occupied. When we landed at the dock, we were approached by many people asking us about a taxi ride and hotels and we took up an offer for a free ride to check out a hotel (which I don't normally do, I usually walk right by the touts). When we got to the hotel, it was nice and we decided to stay. When we asked the hotel owner about an ATM, he told us "no hay, solo moneygram" ( there aren't any, just moneygram). After we paid for the room, we had about $30 between us, not even enough to get back to the main island. Yikes!

Luckily the hotel had wi-fi and Liz was able to contact her sister to send us $, thanks SWJ! But lesson learned, we should always plan on having enough $ on us to get by if need be. Our credit cards weren't going to get us by here in a town with dirt roads and roaming chickens.

snorkeling at concha y perla

On Isabela, we went snorkeling at a local place called "concha y perla"'( conch and pearls) where a very friendly sea lion was trying to take a nap on the deck, but it was a squirrely one and couldn't lay still in one spot. At one point it literally crawled over my foot and started pushing my water bottle toward the water! They make noises and faces and seem to have personalities. This one had ADHD for sure.

We took a day tour to "Los tunneles" (the tunnels) but not inland but on the coast for snorkeling. Its called that because of the rocks form tunnels in the water. It was about a 45 minute boat ride but on the way, we stopped at a spot to see lots of manta rays and not sure why there were doing it but they kept doing backward summersaults, exposing their white bellies on the surface. During the snorkeling, we also saw turtles and the white reef tip sharks "tintorera"..

a very friendly sea lion

we saw white reef tip sharks here

The surfing was also lacking here sadly but the island of San Cristobal has famous surf spots so we decided to head there. Instead of taking 2 boat rides there, we decided to take a quick 45 minute island hopper flight. The price wasn't actually much more and did I mention I get anxious a out sea sickness? The flight was in an 8 passenger plane and it was a beautiful (and safe) flight.

we spent a few there on Cristobal and I went scuba diving for the first time in the Galapagos while Liz snorkeled. We saw tons of fish and turtles. Not much else happened there, saw more sea lions, tried to find coffee... the usual.