Day 2: Finally, I get to see Galapagos
To take off from Quito airport, we had to buy an id card, get our luggage scanned and then wait in line to check in. It was completely backwards from travel in the US. Luckily, my spanish was good enough to communicate with the locals on what to do and where to go.
The flight to Galapagos on Tame Airlines was great. We arrived into the small airport on Baltra island, which used to be a US Military Base during WW II in efforts to protect Panama. We paid our $100 fee to the Galapagos National Park and boarded a bus to take us to a ferry. Baltra only has an airport and military personnel. From the ferry, we crossed the Bachas Channel and boarded another bus. But after sitting on the bus for 15 minutes in hot, hot weather,,,we decided to get a taxi instead. The bus was waiting for the next ferry in 100 degree temps in order to try and fill the bus fully.
We met a guy named Vinny from NYC (from now on, he will be named our cousin Vinny) that was traveling Ecuador with his surf board hitting all the spots in Ecuador and a girl named Cynthia who was a local. Cynthia negotiated the taxi rate for us to get to Puerto Ayora (a 45 min ride) and got us to our hotel from cheap. Driving through the center of Santa Cruz island, we passed through many of the areas where the turtle farms are and lots of lush green wooded areas. It was very beautiful. There is only one main road on Santa Cruz that goes from the north part of the island to the south part and taxis go back and forth on this road.
The Red Mangrove hotel was beautiful. Mangroves surrounding the hotel, creating a perfectly shaped walkway entrance on a boardwalk to the hotel. The mangroves gres through many of the buildings and fresh ocean breeze blew through the hotel that felt amazing. It was well shaded and a great choice of hotels. Despite considering myself a good negotiator, I think that I paid almost 1.5x to 2x what was required for this hotel. I negotiated for three weeks and never got them to come down on price. Our local friend Cynthia informed us that the hotel´s normal rates are much less than what I paid. Despite what anyone tells you, negotiation is very acceptable in Galapagos (like all of South America). I need to go to Galapagos to get additional education, they worked me!
We walked the streets of Puerto Ayora (main town of Galapagos and only town in Santa Cruz) upon arrival and found a great 85 foot sailboat dive boat called the Sea Cloud and the Nautilus that we booked our dives with. The Sea Cloud-Nautilus was very nice. We finished the day with ceviche at our hotel. Although they told us not to drink the water prior to coming to Galapagos, we often did not have a choice at the places that we went and all of them claimed that there water is purified in the restaurants, but sinks and showers are not.
With an early morning dive, we both intende to get an early start on being localized and planned to take a siesta, but woke up a 2AM in the morning and just went back to bed.
Trip to Galapagos from Quito
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Galapagos, Ecuador
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2025-02-10