Ecuador - The Galapagos Islands and Quito

Top of Bartolome Island. I-L-L...

June 19 - Arrive via Bus in Quito, Ecuador
We survived our exhaustingly long bus ride from Medellin and arrived in Quito around 1pm. After being cooped up for so long, I naturally went for a run and was able to find an awesome and very large park. It is quite possibly the best workout park I've ever found, complete with a half mile legitimate rubber track, a running/bike path around its perimeter, workout stations, sport fields, dirt bike course, skating park, etc. On my way back I noticed they have a Freshii restaurant along with several other brand name hotels and restaurants here. So Quito seems to be quite progressive. We found a little outdoor restaurant for "linner" (it was an awkward time in the afternoon/evening at that point) where a bunch of food trucks were gathered and there was outdoor seating. The food was finally flavorful and did not include rice and beans! We walked around a bit but ultimately had an early night as we had to be out the door at 3:30am the next day for our flight to the Galápagos Islands!

View of Pinchacha Mountain from the park in Quito.

June 20 - Arrive in Galápagos Islands
The airline must have been made aware of my exhaustion that day because somehow I was first row of first class for our flight to Galápagos! I could get used to that kind of treatment. Doug remained a mere peasant in coach ;) He also got bit flustered at the check-in counter when a couple of the counter girls told him they liked his butt chin, and proceeded to leave his hiking boots there (never to be found again unfortunately).

Here are some Galápagos facts for you all. There are 22 "big" islands in the Galápagos, 4 of which are inhabited and 1 holds the airport. In total there are over 200 land forms popping out of the ocean. For frame of reference, there's about 35,000 people that live on the islands and about 18,000 that live on the one we were staying on (Santa Cruz). The islands are created from a fault in the ocean which is slowly leaking out lava. The islands move approximately 5-7mm per year and in a few more million years some will be underwater. The current islands are somewhere around 5 million years old. Bonus round: the island which holds the airport (Baltra, aka South Seymour) originally was an American naval base during World War II and then later converted to the main airport for the islands. Although the pictures don't do it justice the view of the island from the airport looked as though we had found the end of the world. In combo with the clouds hovering around the highlands and the very gradual incline of the land, it had quite the illusional effect.

After a short bus ride, transfer across a small canal - the water is gorgeous and clear as can be - and then 45 min cab ride, we arrived at our hotel in Puerto Ayora on Santa Cruz Island. We had booked an excursion package prior to our departure from the US so everything was set up for us. We were met by a local guide at our hotel (yes hotel instead of hostel - it was glorious) and she took us on a tour through the Charles Darwin Center which houses iguanas, turtles, and other species endemic to the island. The main feature here was Lonesome George, now a product of taxidermy (the first reptile for this to be done to apparently). He was the last surviving turtle of a specific species endemic to the islands and as much as scientists tried, they could not find him a female to mate with. Sounds like he may have been a tad asexual as well. Anyhow, he died a few years ago and is now on display in a temperature controlled exhibit at the Charles Darwin Center. I believe they said he was around 160 years old when he died, which is typical for turtles. After that tour we went to get fitted for our scuba diving gear and then walked about 45 minutes over to Tortuga Beach which is a secluded beach that cars do not have access to. It's also the local surf spot and home to endless amounts of crabs and marine iguanas. After that we grabbed dinner at one of the two restaurants we were allowed to eat at all week (included in the package - saving grace was that dessert was included at each meal 😃) and got some much needed sleep.

Throughout the island we noticed that either the construction workers got bored quite often and didn't feel like finishing buildings to completion, or they always wanted the possibility of adding more floors to buildings because we consistently saw column rebar sticking high out of the roof slab. Also several buildings were occupied on the bottom floors with half done construction on the upper ones, but no construction activity going on... It remains a mystery.

Lonesome George

Outside the Charles Darwin Station.

Map of the Galapagos. We stayed on the bigger island in the center - Santa Cruz.

(yes I'm rocking the fanny pack)

Tortuga Beach

Marine iguanas chilling at Tortuga Beach. There's three on top of each other on the left.

June 21 - Scuba Diving Day 1!
The first of two days of diving were at Daphne Minor and Mosquera. The boat was anchored in the port over by the airport so we had a 45 min taxi ride and then another 45 min boat ride to the first site. On the first dive we saw tons of fish and three different species of sharks. One of the sharks was a big guy, probably around 10 ft long. On the second dive of the day, we saw a bunch of fish, large sting rays, and a green sea turtle! The turtle looked very majestic deep down in the ocean and I totally had a Nemo moment in my head when I saw him - heyyyyy duuuude! In fact it was so cool, this turtle single-handedly convinced me to change my favorite animal from monkey to sea turtle :) Once back on board we cruised around one of the islands and got to see a Blue Footed Boobie (the popular bird of the islands) and a penguin! We had lunch on the boat and then made our way back over to the scuba store to watch videos of the day's dives. On our walk back from the scuba center to the hotel we pass a spot where the fishermen bring their day's catch to be sliced up and distributed. Aside from the people working and the onlooking tourists, also in the crowd was a sea lion and several Pelicans waiting to snatch an easy afternoon treat.

Majestic Turtle. Heyyy Duuude!

Dunn-a, dun-aaa. Dunn-a, dun-aaaa. Sharrrrrrrkkkkkk!

June 22 - Scuba Diving Day 2!
Unfortunately the next day I had come down with a sore throat and cold. For those of you that have dove before, this is extra disappointing because when you are sick the congestion does not allow you to pop your ears (known as "equalizing" in the scuba world) as you descend into the water. If you can't pop your ears and go too far down, you can burst your eardrum. As those who know me well know that I am stubborn and decently good at pushing through pain, I gave it a go but reluctantly gave into the fear of never being able to hear again as I couldn't get my left ear to pop on our descent. So instead, I worked on my tan on the boat deck while the others dove for the day and made friends with the captain's assistant who was introduced to us as "Baywatch" for his good looks :)

Doug went on with the dives and saw more sea turtles, fish, sharks, and rays. Unfortunately, he had to come up early after running out of air in his tank on the second dive before the others in the group and missed playing with a sea lion. Apparently it's normal to not get your "sea lungs" for 15-20 dives, but we're working on it. After seeing the videos that were took of the sea lion swimming about, we were both quite jealous of the others. Not to mention my favorite animal changed yet again. Sea lions are like the marine version of puppies. If they are not basking in the sun, they are joyfully flipping about in the water. The grace with which they move in the water is incredible, and then when they are on land their movements are adorably comical. When we got back into town that day we walked through Laguna de Las Ninfas which is a secluded area where the water draining down from the highlands meets the canal from the ocean. There's a dock path around the area and we were lucky enough to follow around a couple of sea lions chasing their dinner in the water.

What we were hoping to see while diving in Bartolomé and Cousin's Rock was hammerhead sharks and manta rays. That unfortunately did not happen so the quest continues! For anyone thinking of diving in Galápagos, Gordon's Rock is supposed to be the best spot for hammerheads.

June 23 - Bartolomé Island
Our third full day on the islands took us to Bartolomé Island, which we had already cruised around by boat on the previous day. It was about a 3 hour slow and steady boat ride this time rather than on the scuba boat where we were busting through waves to get there. No buildings or inhabitants are on the island but there are stairs built in which allow you to climb to the top of the island. The view from the top was picturesque with the bluest of blue water surrounding us. The famous pinnacle (a pointed rock form jutting out of the water) is at this location. Once we finished the "hike" (the guide had us going at a painfully slow place), we went over to a cove on the island for some snorkeling. We weren't expecting much out of the snorkeling because you figure scuba diving can't be beat, but it was actually quite good! I was first to leave the beach and ended up having some quality one-on-one time with a sea turtle 😊 and then shortly after that we saw a decent sized shark, lots of colorful fish, and a purple octopus hiding in the rocks! As we made our return trip to the port, we had a fish lunch on board and relaxed on the front deck on the way home.

Sea lions being sea lions.

Pinnacle Rock

Pano from the top of Bartolome Island

Chilling with the turtle.

June 24 - North Seymour Island
The beginning part to this day tour was painfully slow. Doug and I aren't exactly birdwatching material and that is what the bulk of the morning turned out to be. After about an hour boat ride we got to North Seymour Island and then it took 2 hours to walk a little over a mile because our guide decided to inflict cruel and unusual punishment on us by stopping to talk and gaze far too much. Not to mention the other people in our tour walked painfully slow and probably have 100+ pictures of the same damn type of bird. In a concise version, this island was home to the blue footed boobies, Galápagos island hawk, and land iguanas. Don't have much else to say about that!

After enduring what felt like a marathon, we got back on the boat and did some more snorkeling at a nearby island. We saw tons of fish, 4 or 5 sea turtles, a very dirty sting ray, and probably over ten sharks (just little guys). I found a fish that I am actually scared of. Not sure what it's name is but its large and has teeth and happened to be trying to find some lunch when I was swimming near it so I flippered as quickly as I could away from the area.

When we got back to town that afternoon I was finally feeling decent enough to go for a run. There's basically two roads on the island and they have a bike/running path that looks to be brand new and I was dying all week to be able to take advantage of not having to run through a congested city and all its stop lights. That night we decided to branch out from our two restaurants and try some ceviche at a local spot. There is a street slightly inland of the main tourism road which they've converted to a walking street. Restaurants line it and the locals put tables in the middle. The ceviche was good, but we like Costa Rica's the best still. Randomly we ran into two older couples on the street which we had met in Colombia. Then we ended up back at one of our two restaurants and shared swordfish, which was up there for one of the best meals we've had. And if you think we didn't have chocolate cake smothered in chocolate syrup to top it off you don't know us well.

The famous Blue Footed Boobies

(the white one is a juvenile, takes time for their colors to come in)

Baby Shark

Sting Ray

June 25 - Return to Quito
Our flight out of Galápagos back to Quito was not until 3:40pm so we both took advantage of the bike paths that morning and went for a run. After breakfast we just relaxed and did "admin" stuff until it was time to go. On our taxi ride back to the airport our driver let us get out to see two large, collapsed craters from millions of years ago which were quite cool. It was probably a drop of 200+ feet. We got lucky too because the sky was super clear at the top of the highlands. A typical weather day on the island was clouds in the morning where we were staying on the south end of the island, dense clouds and possibly mist in the highlands as we made our way to the port for the boats, and then clear, sunny, and hot on the north side of the island. There was one morning and one night where we had sun in Puerto Ayora so good thing all the excursions were on the sunny side! We got back to Quito late as the Galápagos were an hour behind in the mountain time zone so we called it a day. Back to the hostel life :(

Collapsed crater from millions of years ago.

June 26 - Quito
Our original intention was to get a bus (which would have been 36+ hours) to Lima from Quito. If we would have had more time we would have gone down through Baños and Cuenca in Ecuador but we had, now regrettably, already bought our flights from Lima to Cusco for our Machu Picchu trek for June 29. We had had such an easy time getting on buses in the previous countries, we didn't think it would be any problem to do it again. Wrong we were! After walking all over the city trying to find various bus ticket offices (the Internet was not much help), we discovered that the buses to Lima only leave on certain days from here and none of them were able to get us to Lima in time for our flight to Cusco. Begrudgingly, we bought an expensive plane ticket to Lima. Lesson learned on booking excursions in advanced! Later that day I went for a run up to a different large and tranquil park that overlooks the city. It was so peaceful I laid in the grass listening to the birds and taking in the view for a bit. For dinner we got a very filling and tasty Ecuadorian meal at a local joint. They have these sauces called Aji that are spicy but very good. This restaurant had three types with varying levels of spice. It was early still so I ventured out to the bar area called Plaza Foch and enjoyed the local beer - Pilsener. My favorite beer so far was found in Medellin. Bogota Brewing Company has 4 types of beer that I found in the grocery store, my favorite was a honey lager. It brought me back to my Vancouver summer where I finally learned to enjoy beer with a Granville Island honey lager 😋

A little nugget of info about Ecuador - they use the American dollar here for their currency. However, they have seemed to have collected our entire supply of $1 coins. Then they use all the other normal coins we do, except apparently they felt a void where the 50 cent value is and added in an Ecuadorian 50 cent coin. They also don't like credit cards here. Needless to say, my wallet is very heavy with coins at the moment.

June 27 - Quito by Day, Lima by Night
Our flight to Lima was not until 6:20pm so we were finally able to do some sightseeing in Quito in the first part of the day. I started my day at the park that has the track and "workout facilities." Surprisingly there were a ton of people there working out and running in the morning. Afterwards, we walked to the center of town. On the way we found a beautiful, old, massive church. The surroundings changed quite a bit as we got closer to the center. The buildings got much older and streets smaller. There wasn't a ton to see but it was interesting to see the change from the newer part of the city where we've been staying to the old part. There is a big monument on top of one of the hills called Panecillo. The tourism policeman who stopped us seemed to be quite proud of it. On our walk back we found two spots where they are constructing stations for a new metro - I'll probably have a metro or CTA nightmare tonight because of it. Then we just killed some time before we had to leave for the airport. At the airport we were able to use our priority passes that got us into the VIP lounge. Gotta love free food and drink, and decent WiFi 😊😊