Off to the Galapagos - May 31

We had a painfully early start to our Galapagos adventure this morning.  Our group had to meet at 5:00 am in the Union and then be on the road for 3 ½ hours for our transfer to the airport in Guayaquil.  I was the trip leader and had 15 students in my group.  Everyone arrived on time and was ready to go which was an excellent way to begin.  Once we were on the bus, everyone staked out their own seat and promptly went back to sleep and I was right there with them since it was still dark out and there wasn’t anything to see out the windows.  Also, getting up at 4:00 is just wrong!

3 ½ hours later we were at the Guayaquil Airport and had two hours to kill – we had to get their early since they consider the Galapagos Islands an international flight.  Go figure.  We eventually got on the plane and had a 2-hour flight to Isla Baltra which is the island that has the main airport which serves all of the Galapagos Islands.  From Isla Baltra we took a small boat to Isla Santa Cruz, transferred to a bus and started our adventure in earnest.

We were introduced to Jaime (pronounced Hi-me) who was our special Galapagos tour guide for the visit.  Our first stop on the island was to a large crater in the ground right next to a volcano.  He explained that the gases that had been under the ground waiting to be sucked into the volcano never made it that far so it imploded in that place and created a crater - how’s that for a very non-scientific explanation?! 

 

After the crater pit, we were taken to a lava tunnel where hot lava once flowed from the nearby volcano.  Kind of creepy but cool too.

Once we admired the lava tunnel, we moved on to the Tortoise Reserve where the ginormous tortoises hang out, eat and make baby tortoises.  These suckers were huge!  And old too.  The two we got close to were about 90 years old but they usually live to about 150.  Truly astonishing.The one eating the grass eventually got tired of all of the humans around him and lumbered off into the tall grass.  Who can blame him?

 

After the turtles, we were taken to our hotel and given time to wander around the city of Puerto Ayora to shop at the small, touristy stores and then have dinner.  Since I had been up since 4:00 I went to bed very early and it felt heavenly.  We are off to Isla Santa Fe tomorrow to hang out with Blue Footed Boobys and Sea Lions!