After a much delayed 11 hour bus journey we arrived into Lima on a Friday night in heavy traffic. The first taxi driver we asked outside the bus station wanted 60 pesos to take us to our hostel near the airport, which we considered highway robbery so we politely declined and went back inside to consider our options. Since we had been to Lima before and had an idea of where we were heading, we thought around 30 pesos (or less) would be more reasonable, so Steve tried again and managed to find a taxi driver that agreed to take us for 20 pesos. So in we clamoured, not before giving the taxi driver the full address of the hostel written on a piece of paper.
After 2 hours of driving around various areas of Lima looking for the street, our taxi driver (who hablo absolutely no Ingles) starting pulling over and asking strangers for directions. At this point we got the notebook out and found the phone number of the hostel, thinking they could give him directions in spanish. However his phone had no credit, and we were not about to double the cost of our taxi by offering him our UK mobile, so we had to stop at one of those telephone kiosk places so that he could make the call. So he comes back out smiling and looking like he knows where it is now, but then says that we need to pay him more (now 50 pesos) for him to take us there as its on the other side of town. We said that we didn’t understand him, and that we would use the hostel staff to translate when we got there.
On arrival at the hostel, I got the woman to come out and speak to the taxi driver, who she confirmed was now saying that our tour of Lima would cost us 50 pesos, which is the going rate for 2 hours in a taxi. We of course argued that it was not our fault that he didn’t know where he was going and took us on a wild goose chase, and that we had agreed a price of 20 pesos and given him the full address. At which point he claimed that we had said the wrong street name when we got in to the taxi, and his eyes weren’t very good to read the paper! In the end we had to pay him 30 pesos to get rid of him, and it was all very frustrating after the long exhausting bus journey. The moral of the story is that we’ve learnt that all taxi drivers in South America are rip off artists and cannot be trusted as far as you can throw them.
We had one night in the Lima hostel and the following morning we caught our flight to Guayaquil and then taxied to the hostel (this one thankfully less eventful). We arrived at the hostel around 12h00 on the Saturday, checked in and went to see the attached travel agency to hear about their Galapagos tours as we hadn‘t booked anything yet. We had been warned about how expensive a 1 week tour of the Galapagos Islands could be, but it was still a bit of a shock to see the prices written up on the travel agents board for each boat. Even more so considering that the flights and Galapagos Park fees were not included in the cruise price. However the travel agent managed to find us a fairly reasonable 5 day cruise (as opposed to an 8 day) on a small catamaran (sleeps 10) and said that the catamaran should be more stable than a regular boat, to allay my concerns about seasickness. Having never slept on a boat before, and having had seasickness a few times in the past, I asked them how big the swell would be, and the woman in the agency said that the water in the Galapagos is like the top of a teacup! So we said thanks, we would consider the tour on offer and get back to them after shopping around a bit. It was at this point that we were told that all the other travel agencies in the city were likely to be closed, as they were not generally open on a Saturday afternoon, and that they would only open again on the Monday morning. This was not terribly convenient for us, as we’d wanted to get on a cruise leaving ASAP. As it turned out most boats stopped at a port either on a Wednesday or a Sunday, so we would probably have to wait for the Wednesday to start a cruise.
The following day (Sunday) with time to kill and not much else to do, we caught a local bus in to the city to have a look around Guayaquil and our first impressions were that, like most city centres, it was a bit grimy. However we walked up to the river and got some lunch along the new river promenade , which was quite nice. Then we walked over to the Iguana Park, which was a bit of a surprise and is quite literally a park filled with iguanas all over the place. Iguanas in the trees, iguanas on the grass, and iguanas walking on the footpaths. We quickly learned that it’s not a good idea to stand underneath the trees looking up at the iguanas! I will mention that I felt quite uncomfortable walking around the city, as all the local men were staring at me everywhere I went like I was some sort of alien. Literally turning their heads all the way around and watching us until we were out of sight. Now I might have taken this as some sort of compliment (as in yeah baby I‘ve still got it!), but it was all just rather sleazy / creepy as they weren’t doing it with a friendly smile on their faces, and they didn’t look away embarrassed, when you looked right back at them…they just kept on following us with their eyes. Perhaps I was just the whitest human they had ever seen, as they were all pretty tanned in them parts! Anyway it was enough to make me feel pretty uncomfortable and weirded out.
At around 5pm we walked back to the local bus stop, as marked on the map from our hostel. Well it was more of a major intersection than an actual bus stop, as buses stop anywhere you hail them in Equador. However there were loads of local people standing around and loads of buses pulling over so we knew we were in the right place. Unfortunately we had just seen our bus pulling away so we knew we would have a longer wait for the next one. After standing around for about 20 minutes, with still no sign of our bus, we had a rather unpleasant surprise. In broad daylight, with loads of locals standing around us, some little scumbag actually tried to mug Steve! He basically grabbed Steve’s t-shirt and starting pulling, while he then tried to get Steve’s wallet out of his pocket with the other hand. There was a bit of pushing and shoving and when Steve grabbed his wrist, he let go and then rather casually walked away from us. He didn’t actually manage to get anything or hurt Steve, but it was a shock all the same. It all happened very quickly and I will say that none of the locals standing around us tried to intervene. We made a hasty retreat and hailed a taxi to get the hell out of there. It was just as well we did, because as we got in to the taxi we saw the very same little scumbag crossing over the street. He was probably coming back around to have another go. Frankly we were flabbergasted - broad daylight with people standing all around us - what a cheek!
The following day (Monday) we got a taxi back in to the city centre (we decided to give the local buses a miss after our lovely experience the previous day) and went straight to another of the travel agencies listed in our book, to compare tours. Frankly the tours they had on offer couldn’t come close to the catamaran the hostel offered, so we got straight back in another taxi and headed to the hostel to book the tour, before the last two spots on the boat were taken. There was a bit of rigmarole involved in booking the tour as we had to walk to the local shopping centre, get the cash out of an ATM machine (which would only accept one of our cards) and then go in to a local bank branch and deposit the cash into their account, before the bank closed. Then back to the hostel to show them the deposit slip as proof of payment, so that they could arrange the rest with the boat and book our flights from Guayaquil to Santa Cruz island in the Galapagos. We booked a flight for first thing the next morning, so that we could spend the extra day waiting for the tour to start on Santa Cruz. Frankly neither of us liked Guayaquil and we couldn’t wait to get out of there. In hindsight we really should have flown directly to Santa Cruz and then arranged a tour from there, as the island was far more beautiful / tourist friendly, and there were far more tour agencies offering cruises along the main road.
So the following morning we packed our bags and caught our flight out to Santa Cruz. The only interesting thing about the Guayaquil departure lounge is that you have to scan your bags through some sort of environmental agent killer and get a tag , before you can check in with your airline. The powers that be in the Galapagos are very concerned about people introducing new plants / animals etc on to their islands.
Santa Cruz airport has a tiny one room arrivals hall, and we had to pay the Galapagos park entrance fee (100 USD) at the passport control before they’d let us in. Then we managed to walk right out in to the waiting area without picking up our bags (no baggage signs), so we had to get security to let us back in again. They basically have a tractor with a pulley on it, pull your bags in to an adjacent room. Then they have a dog sniff all the bags, before they will let you go in to pick it up. Anyway bags retrieved we walked outside to find a load of buses queuing to take passengers away. After a short bus trip, then a short ferry ride, and then another 45 minute bus trip we finally arrived in the centre of Santa Cruz.
We had emailed a hostel in Santa Cruz the day before, but they hadn’t replied, so we walked up to the hostel to ask about availability. Unfortunately our first choice hostel was already booked up, so we had to walk around and try another one, which had space, so we checked in. Who needs a reservation anyway? As we wanted to make the most of our free half day before the tour started, we grabbed a quick lunch and then hired a couple of mountain bikes from a local shop. The lady suggested that we could get a taxi to the lava tunnels and tortoise reserve, and then cycle back to Puerta Ayora, as it was ‘all downhill on the way back’ and should take around 45 minutes. So we hailed one of the white Hilux bakkies (all taxis on the island are white Hilux bakkies, or pickup trucks), put our bikes in the back, and off we went to the lava tunnels.
We were both pretty impressed with the lava tunnel, which is basically a long underground tunnel that was formed by lava flowing through it. We basically walked down some steps in to a sort of underground cave and then along a large tunnel that was easily large enough for us to walk around in for about 20 minutes, to reach the other side. The tunnel is so perfectly formed, with a round roof that you could be forgiven for thinking it was man made. Apart from the fact that the ground is all uneven and made up of boulders of volcanic rock.
After the lava tunnels we retrieved our bikes (tied up against a tree) and cycled to the tortoise reserve at the end of a long dirt road. The tortoise reserve was basically a farm with walking paths running through it here and there, so that you could walk along the paths and see the giant tortoises. Some of them were monsters and we snuck off the path here and there to get a couple of photos with them. However they were pretty shy and made some weird hissing noises at us when we got too close to them, retreating into their shells. I suppose when you are that big and slow you don’t really have a lot of options in terms of self defence! It was cool to be able to watch them up close though, as they slowly tug at vegetation to feed themselves. There were also a couple of large tortoise shells at the entrance to the farm, that were actually big enough for us to climb inside and get a photo. I didn’t realise that the tortoise’s spine is actually fused to the inside of the shell, but you could see the spine inside there at the top of the shell - very cool. When we’d finished walking around the farm we stopped for a coke at the cafeteria who were just closing up (by this time it was around 5pm) and then we headed back to our bikes to start the ride back. We had figured it would take us around an hour to get back, so a reasonable 6pm and well in time to return the bikes before they closed up shop at 8pm.
However after about 10 minutes of some serious uphill puffing, on a rocky dirt road we realised that the ride home wasn’t going to be as easy as the bikeshop woman had let on. I got off the bike to check the brakes and realised that the brakes were permanently ‘on’ and that the wheels didn’t actually spin when you turned them - no wonder it was such hard work going uphill- I was fighting the brakes the whole way! This combined with the fact that the bike seat had started slipping backwards all the time, making it almost impossible to sit properly and reach the handlebars- argghh! Steve had a similar problem with his brakes, and after a couple of tries, we decided that the only thing for it, was to walk the uphill dirt road part, until we got to the tarred road again, which would hopefully all be downhill, as promised. However that was one very long dirt road, and it was around 6pm by the time we got to the paved road, feeling pretty knackered after pushing the braking bikes along the whole way uphill, only to see the paved road stretching slightly uphill in front of us! We passed a man herding a load of cows along the road and then got back on the bikes to cycle for about a half an hour (some of it downhill, some not, all the way cursing that bloody woman in the bikeshop). At which point it was starting to get dark, and we didn’t have any lights or reflective gear on the bikes, apart from Steve’s head torch, which he spun around to flash behind his back. Nor did the road have any lights on it, so we were starting to feel a bit unsafe as darkness crept up, and we were still miles away from the town with more uphills in front of us and the crappy bikes to contend with - all in all not a very comfortable place to be. Fortunately a short while later a white hilux taxi came along the road and offered us a lift share into town which we gladly accepted. And I can tell you that it definitely was Not all downhill from there! We were very relieved when we finally got back in to town and returned those Mal bikes just before closing time, although I suspect our complaints to them only fell upon deaf ears.
The following afternoon we packed our bags and went to meet our cruise tour guide at the port. He basically took our bags off us and sent them away to the catamaran in a little dinghy, and then introduced us to the rest of the people on our cruise. They consisted of a friendly American family of five and a friendly Belgian couple, and since it was a small catamaran that only slept 10 max, those were our only shipmates. I was glad that we weren’t on one of those massive cruiseliners I’d seen with tens of grey haired strangers milling about which would be very impersonal. The first day of the five day cruise was however a bit of a write off, as we just went to see the giant tortoises and land iguanas at the Darwin centre and then had a couple of hours off around the town, before meeting at 6pm to head over for our first excited glimpse of the boat.
The catamaran itself looked pretty cool from the outside, if somewhat small and we clamoured onboard and went to see our cabin (home for 4 nights). This consisted of an unfeasibly small space with like 2 single wooden bunk beds next to one another (one slightly raised), a small turning space one person could stand up in at a time, and then a very small bathroom with a toilet (suction hand pump flushing mechanism thingy) and a small sink, with a hand shower attachment (a kind of small wet room shower) over the toilet. My first thoughts were - Oh my God how are we going to sleep in here its very claustrophobic! However in the end we spent very little time in the room itself (apart from bedtime) as we spent most of our time upstairs on the back of the boat. After dinner the guide explained that we would sail to our first stop (Rabida) overnight, so that we could get off there first thing in the morning.
I was about to get my first taste of the open Pacific Ocean on a small catamaran, and let me tell you it was nothing like the top of a teacup. Unless that teacup is being shaken about violently ala that famous scene in Jurassic Park. After staying up as late as possible trying to tire myself out, I finally went below deck and tried to get comfortable in my little bunkbed. However the relentless tilting of the boat and moreover the very loud roaring of the engine (which seemed to stationed right underneath our bunk beds) meant that I didn’t get a wink of sleep all that night, and when they rang the breakfast bell at 7am the following morning, I came up feeling very tired and pretty miserable. Fortunately that was the only night that we sailed during the night, so I slept okay on nights 2, 3 and 4.
That morning we got off at Rabida, which is a red sandy beach that is full of sea lions where we could do some snorkelling. The snorkelling was fantastic as the sea lions are quite inquisitive and will come up and swim around you to check you out. Cant wait to see the pics from our disposable underwater cameras. After lunch we sailed to Porta Egas where we went for a walk around and saw the marine iguanas and a couple of fur seals. The marine iguanas are like large black lizards and there were loads of them all over the black lava rocks, and they don’t move for people, so you have to be careful not to step on them as they are well camouflaged. The landscape on the island was a bit surprising as when I think of an island I usually picture lush tropical vegetation, however these are volcanic islands with volcanic rock everywhere and the land is pretty arid, with lava cactus growing in most places.
Re boat - I will say that the food onboard the boat was good. However unfortunately our guide wasn’t very good (that’s what you get for booking an economic cruise I guess), as his English wasn’t great, so he wasn’t very chatty / forth coming with information. This was a shame as I think we would have gotten more out of the cruise if our guide had been better, however we still got to see loads of animals and some fantastic scenery along the way.
After dinner we sailed for Bartolome and the next day we went on a walk up to a lookout point with a lighthouse and a view of Pinnacle Rock. We saw some lava lizards and loads of lava cactus. Then we walked down to a beach where they don’t allow swimming, and we saw a turtle and loads of white tipped reef sharks swimming up and down in the shallow water. We waded in up to our knees to get some pics and the sharks were swimming within a couple of feet of us - very cool. Then we walked to the snorkelling beach and went snorkelling around Pinnacle Rock. We did see loads of different types of fish, and a penguin sitting up on a rock, along with the ubiquitos sea lions.
That afternoon we sailed to North Seymour and went for a walk, where we saw the famous blue footed booby bird (its on all the tourist t shirts). What is amazing is that the birds on Galapagos have no fear of people, and there are birds that have nested right next to the walking path, and you can walk right up to them without them blinking an eye, or trying to fly away. I suppose you could say the same about the sea lions or the iguanas, but I was more impressed with the birds staying put, as they are usually so nervous back home. Whilst at the bird colony we also saw the friggit birds with the red balloon inflated on its chest, which was pretty cool, and a couple of big land iguanas. They are a different colour than the marine iguana and there seem to be less of them about.
On day 4 we got up at 05h30 in the morning and went to Macarena (?) island to see the larger sea lions protecting their turf. One of the younger sea lions was pretty inquisitive and sniffed Steve’s toes, which is apparently a thing they do here. Afterwards we had to sail 7 hours to get to Sante Fe. The sea was pretty rough and although I had held it together pretty well until that point (and was taking seasickenss tabs every day) I’m afraid to say that I had to throw up overboard at that point. I’ve never been very good on boats, but I made an exception for the Galapagos as a cruise is meant to be the best way to see it. I’m not sure I would hurry back on to a cruise anytime soon though! Anyway on the way over to Sante Fe we did get to see a load of large mantarays jumping out of the water and doing backflips which was very cool.
We got to Sante Fe and in the afternoon we went snorkelling in the lagoon where we saw a big eagle ray, 2 other grey rays (?)and a big turtle which was awesome. We also saw a load of fish and later on a large (2.5metre long shark) but fortunately that was when we were getting back in to the boat lol. Then we went for a walk to look for land iguanas, but we only saw 1 baby iguana as they must have all been hiding that day. After we got back on the boat to sail most of the way to San Cristobal.
On day 5 (last day) they just sailed us around Kicker Rock so that we could take some photos, and then we had a quick brekky before they took us in to San Cristobal and dropped us off to end our tour. Overall the cruise was definately worth doing as we saw so many animals and birds along the way, and the snorkelling was fab.
We had another 2 nights in San Cristobal on our own, so the next day we went to visit the Interpretation Centre to read about the history of the islands and how Darwin came up with his theory of evolution after seeing the different kinds of finches on the islands.
This morning we took a 1.5 hour speedboat across to Santa Cruz island (as our return flight is from here). Today we went to see Tortuga Bay (turtle bay). It was quite a long walk to get to the beach, however once we got there it was beautiful with blue water, big breaking waves and soft white sand underfoot. The bay did live up to its name as we saw 4 turtles swimming in the distance by the rocks as we were walking along the beach. We also saw another load of white tipped reef sharks in the shallows by the mangrove trees, but the visibility wasn’t great on the swimming beach.
Tomorrow morning we are getting a flight back to Guayquil for 1 night (thanksfully short), before flying on to Cancun via Miami. We are both looking forward to a bit of luxury in the resort after staying in all the hostels along the way - thanks to Mum Connellan for the present!
I thinks that’s all for now. Love to all at home.
Take care,
Kirst x
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