Day 8

I woke up feeling much better than I did last night, and thankfully, I wasn't sick on the boat again . We had our last early morning start, and I was surely looking forward to a few lay-ins as I've not been up this early for a whilel! We'd arrived in San Cristobel during the night and were moored up at the port. I was feeling sad that it was our last morning and we had to say goodbye to everyone, but also feeling happy that we were about to set foot on dry land. After breakfast, we had to bring all our bags downstairs ready for the crew to bring them to the port later on today. Our last group outing was a visit to the interpretation centre on San Cristobel. This centre basically gives a whole overview of how the Galápagos Islands were formed, lots of information about Charles Darwin's voyage upon the Beagle, information about the world war and soldiers being posted to the Galápagos and plenty of up-to-date information about how the islanders survive in modern society. 

We got our last dinghy ride to shore and said goodbye to the Estrella Del Mar ship. We had to dodge the sea lions and carefully walk around them as there were quite a few of them by the beach . We took another bus ride to the interpretation centre, this time it was only a 10 minute ride. Once we got there, Sol said we have an hour there and to meet her outside the front entrance once we're finished. Everyone went off and walked around at their own pace. I was last as I kept taking lots of pictures and was trying to read all of the information about the Galápagos. Luckily, the information was written in English. We spent the hour going round there and Sol was hurrying us along as usual as the bus was waiting for us outside. I'm looking forward to having independence again, as we will be on our own timetable and not one where Sol is forcing us to hurry up all the time. We went outside the centre and there was another solitary giant tortoise, so we stopped to watch it for a little while. These tortoises feed off the cactus fruit, and there was a cactus here, so we found a fruit on the floor and John threw it and it hit the tortoise on the back of it's shell- poor tortoise! When we turned around, Sol had been standing at the other side scornfully watching us! The tortoise did eat the fruit and I think it was grateful for it to be honest . We got told that the tortoises only get fed every 2-3 days, because of their slow metabolism, so I'm sure this tortoise must have been starving. 

Sol called us again, so this time we had to go outside to catch the bus back to the port. We were suppose to be able to have some free time to wander around San Cristobel ourselves before we finished the cruise. However, as usual we felt like we were being lied to, as Sol said our bags were waiting for us on the pavement with one of the crew members. So now we could wander around the town ourselves, but we had all of our bags in tow with us! Great fun. It was time to say our goodbyes to everyone, so we gave everyone a hug and said it was nice meeting them. Sol gave us all an awkward hug and you could tell she just wanted to get rid of us all. Some of the older ladies had a plane to catch that day and Sol said they could give us a lift to some hostel that she recommends, but we wanted to stay somewhere on the waterfront or at least by the beach. We hadn't booked anywhere to stay yet as when I'd looked things up online, I could only find accommodation on Santa Cruz or Isabella islands, which was no good. So John, Mark and myself had to find somewhere to stay ourselves with all our stuff. 

After we'd said goodbye to all, we decided to check out an Internet cafe to try and find some accommodation. I found a few places and also Mark found some, so we tried to find them on a map and then we'd walk to find them . Birkett told us about a place called Casa Laura and said her and Angelica were going to stay there, we stupidly said we'll find somewhere first, but may see them later on. We started checking out some places to stay and started asking around of there were any rooms free. Most of them were either out of our price range, or sold out, so no luck there. Eventually, we did decide to check out this Casa Laura place as I'd seen it online and it looked really nice. By this time, I was getting annoyed and tired with carrying all my bags and I really wanted to stay there, so just hoped it wasn't too much further away. We waked around a few corners and found the hostel, it looked nice from outside with some hammocks in the front porch, so we asked of they had any rooms. They had rooms, so we did a bit or bartering with them and he agreed to give us two rooms for $25 per person rather than $30, so we all agreed as it was a really nice place. We should have listened to the German's in the first place and gone with them! We couldn't see them here when we checked in, but I'm sure the are here . It was a relief to drop our bags off, now we were free to be totally independent, especially from Sol! 

We checked ourselves in and went back to the port to have a walk around and find something to eat. Funnily enough once we'd sat down somewhere on the beachfront, we bumped into Birkett and Angelica who came and joined us for lunch. We asked them if they were staying at Casa Laura and they said yes, we told them we were there also. Once we'd all had lunch, we decided to go for a wander around the coastal path which we saw earlier on when we visited the interpretation centre. We could go where we wanted and had no particular time restriction to keep to now we were off the boat! We passed plenty of sea lions, in particular, there was a cute one on the bench. I had a picture with it and so did the others, however, when I sat next to it, I got a bit too close for comfort as it sneezed all over my face- yuk! When I got over that fact, we asked the centre for directions and headed off down the path. We walked up a path where there were some lava rocks and up a hill with a viewpoint over the beach. We stopped to admire views and I sat down and a little Darwin Finch tried to jump on my hand because I held my hand out for it! You can't get closer to wildlife than this here in the Galapagos! We saw a centipede crawling along, and then we walked near the edge of the cliff and saw some frigate birds nesting. We started to walk back down as we'd seen a massive Charles Darwin statue from up above . We went to find it and when we did, it was this gigantic statue of him. So naturally, we went to visit Mr Darwin to say hello and stop for a photo! We messed around and tried to take some group pictures of everyone. We sat there for a while as some people were snorkelling nearby. We just liked taking advantage of the fact we didn't have Sol there telling us to hurry up. There were 5 out of our group of 11 from the cruise and we may even bump into Ben and Michelle later as they were catching a ferry back to this island today too. 

The sun was starting to set now, so we decided to head back and we actually thought about when and if we'd see Ben and Michelle, but it's such a small place, we're bound to see them. Just as we were saying this, we actually did bump into them. They said if we just run up and down the dock, you're bound to see us, so that's what they did and they found us. We arranged to meet back up with them for dinner later as they'd just arrived . We asked everyone to come along for dinner as it would be like old times. We met up at 7pm and there was a nice restaurant near us so decided to eat there. John hasn't tried ceviche yet and really wanted to, so what better place to try it than in the Galápagos. Luckily for him, it was on the menu, so John had that. Ceviche is a dish of raw fish, cooked in the acid of lime juice. When the food came, it was served in a little bowl with tomatoes, onions and random bits of raw fish, including octopus tentacles, squid, and a mixture of seafood. John really liked it, although I'm sure it wasn't enough for him. Michelle made John a homemade birthday card of a blue-footed boobie, which was really sweet of her. I felt really bad as it was Michelle's birthday tomorrow and we didn't get her a card. She then asked everyone to draw a picture of their favourite animal from the Galapagos. I drew a marine iguana and John drew a Sally Lightfoot crab. We all had a lovely evening and as we still had some alcohol left from the boat, we invited everyone back to have drinks at the hostel . The German ladies were tired so went to bed, but the youngsters all sat back at our hostel and played dice and card games again, which was fun. It got to midnight and the security guard told us we had to leave the outdoor area as we were being too noisy, so everyone bundled into our room to carry on playing dice. When I started to move my things out of the way, I noticed a tiny little lava lizard on the bedside table, which startled me! It soon moved off and I couldn't see it for the rest of the night, I hoped it would not be joining us in bed tonight! We carried on playing dice until the wee hours of the morning, around 3am, so called it a night after that.

Day 9

We had a bit of a lay in that morning and I had a shower which flooded the whole place out! The staff came in and cleaned the flood up. Meanwhile, we had to wait outside. When we got in the room again, I saw the lizard, it was laying on it's back the poor thing. I thought it was dead, so asked John to put it outside, but when he went to put it outside, the tail was moving, so I said put it outside anyway as it'll be able to survive out there better than here . I checked a few minutes later to see if it was still there, and it wasn't, so i'm presuming it was still alive. Just the thought that an animal from the Galápagos could have died in our room horrified me! Ben and Michelle had come to say goodbye to us, so we waved them off and said our goodbyes. It was Michelle's official birthday today, so we wished her happy birthday and saw them on their way. Mark was leaving later this afternoon, so after Ben and Michelle went, we went to get some lunch. The German ladies were not around so we went off without them. It's been so lovely meeting everyone from our cruise and we'll surely miss being in everyone's company. What we won't miss about the cruise is being stuck on their time, seasickness, or the amount of money we spent on the cruise. If we were to go back and do it again, I think we would do it independently, as that way, you can go where you like when you like and it will certainly be a lot cheaper than booking a cruise a few days in advance like we did. I'm not saying we didn't enjoy our Galápagos trip, far from it, just that we'd do things differently if we knew then what we know now . The guys who booked last minute and I mean literally as the boat was about to sail, paid around $500 less per person than us. When you're on a tight budget, that is a lot of money to us! It's easy enough to do Galápagos independently, just book a flight out there, arrange accommodation when you get here, as not many of them advertise online, and then book tours once you get to the islands. I suppose if you don't want all the hassle of arranging that yourself, you can still go on a cruise. The fact that all your itinerary is mapped out for you and you don't have to plan anything while you're on the boat is a great feeling. I guess it just comes down to personal preference. Anyway, so after we had lunch, we walked back to the hostel with Mark to say goodbye. Mark is a really nice guy and I hope we keep in touch with him when we return back to the UK. We were feeling a bit sad when the Aussies and Mark had gone as that was our little group from the boat. Now it was just us and the Germans. We arranged to meet up with them for dinner again tonight, so this afternoon we will do our own thing .  

La Loberia- Sea lion refuge 

So after Mark left, we decided to try and go to another visitor site. We walked towards the airport and we came across a map of the area, we saw another site and it didn't look far, so we headed down towards there. We found the airport easily enough, it's a tiny airport close to the main port of San Cristobel. Next to the airport were some cool animal murals made out of tiles, including a flamingo, a dolphin, a penguin and a booby. They were quite big too. I'm loving the fact that we have a few extra days to explore the islands independently or we wouldn't have been able to do this ourselves. So anyway, we walked towards La Loberia, and we were walking for quite a while, it must have taken us an hour to get there. Eventually when we got towards it, there was a sign pointing us in the right direction, so we carried on walking down a path that led to the beach. It was a lovely stretch of beach, wild rugged coast, black lava rocks and there were even some marine iguanas there . I saw a massive one, so tried to get a picture close by it. The marine iguanas actually turn a different colour when in mating season, and this one was starting to turn colourful. It's a shame we're not here for slightly longer, as we'd have seen them more colourful. But we've been spoiled with all the wildlife we've seen. So we carried on walking along the path as this place is a sea lion refuge so we wanted to head down to where they were. We carried on walking for about 5 minutes and eventually came to a nice stretch of white sandy beach. There were a few local people there and some were surfing and snorkelling. It's a good place to surf, as the waves are quite big here. We sat down on the beach for a bit, well John did and suddenly, all these little finch birds came flocking around him. I tried to get some pictures as some of them were trying to land on him, and some actually did land on his legs. These birds have absolutely no fear of us, and it's cute how they crowd around humans. When I sat down, I hoped the birds would flock around me, but to no avail . I sat there for a while, and eventually the birds did start to come round me. I wish I had some bread to feed them! One landed in my foot and stayed there for a while, some others tried to land on my bag right beside me. They were tiny little tame birds, it would be cool of they were like this back at home. After we sat there for an hour or so, the clouds started to go grey, so we decided to head back as it's a long walk. I thought it was going to rain, but it was just spitting. It was a lovely place to come and chill out and was nice to do something by ourselves without anyone else.
 
We got back to the hostel and got ready to meet with the German ladies. We said we'd meet them outside the hostel at 7 to go for dinner. We went outside and waited for them and couldn't see them, so decided to carry on walking slowly. John had wanted just us to go for dinner this evening, but I couldn't be rude so we agreed to meet them. After a few minutes, they turned up so we all went to a new restaurant, one which was a bit more expensive than we wanted to pay, but all the same it was a nice one . After dinner, we headed back to the hostel to get an early night as we are checking out tomorrow to catch our flight back to Quito. 

Day 10

We woke up bright and early for our flight and we had check out that morning. Our flight was at 11am, so we were feeling quite lazy today, so we asked to get a taxi to the airport. We could have easily walked but decided to get the taxi because we are carrying the snorkelling equipment, along with our bags, to take back to the secret garden hostel Quito. We got a pick up truck, as those are the local taxis here, and when I got to the actual airport, I couldn't believe it was so small. It wasn't actually a proper indoor airport, there was just a security gate and some seats outside, and then you walk through to board the plane. So the boarding process should be really quick. We sat down and waited to be called. I remembered we hadn't got a stamp in our passports from here and really wanted one, so I asked them if we could have one. They took us to a little indoor room and they stamped our passports- yey we finally have one of the best passport stamps we will ever get. Next stamp I hope to get is Machu Picchu, which isn't long away now. So once that was sorted, we were on our way back to Quito again. I'm very sad to be leaving such beautiful islands, and the wildlife here makes it even more special. Perhaps we'll return one day and see how much it's changed over the years. So for now it's goodbye to the Galapagos and farewell to everyone we met here. We hopped back on the flight to Quito and then went back to the secret garden hostel to stay for one more night. After this, we're heading down to Banos, where they have hot thermal springs and we're going to have some much needed relaxation time after all the activities keeping us busy on the Galápagos Islands.