Saturday, February 19

Andi, Tory, Aden and I spent our final few hours on Santa Cruz Island in Galapagos, Educator this morning. We ate breakfast together in the restaurant of our hotel & were surprised to find every table full of guests. This weekend, locals are celebrating the anniversary of Galapagos becoming a recognized canton (or, state) in Ecuador 49 years ago.

Aden was anxious to swim in the hotel pool this morning before we checked out of our room, but the pool was still closed for maintenance. Yesterday, the hotel told us the pool would open at 7:00am but there were still cones surrounding it and maintenance workers cleaning the pool with giant hoses and buckets. It was a little frustrating since the main reason we selected this hotel was because it had a pool and now we’ve hardly been able to use it during our stay.

While we waited for the pool to open, Aden played on his iPhone and I attempted to check up on blogging but the internet is brutally slow in the Galapagos and it proved to be no use. Instead, I packed up our bags in preparation for our departure to San Cristobal Island later today.

Tory complained that she didn’t feel very well today and wanted to lay down in our hotel room for a while. Her mouth has been bothering her this week as she’s losing a top molar tooth and has a few other permanent teeth growing into their places. I gave her some Tylenol hoping that’d help.

The pool finally opened at Noon, so Aden had a few minutes to swim before we were scheduled to meet the ferry to San Cristobal Island. Andi booked us tickets on a speed boat ferry between islands because we’d read the public ferry to San Cristobal was a brutal ride. Honestly, we expected the speed boat ferry to be a bumpy ride as well but at least it’d only be two hours of torture instead of four hours. The seas around Galapagos Islands are not calm waters.

Before our ferry departed at 1:30pm, we left our bags with the hotel receptionist and walked to get a bite to eat in Santa Cruz. Andi selected a local deli that offered sandwiches, smoothies, bakery items and pizza. I wasn’t expecting much in terms of food quality, but our menu items were actually very tasty. Andi and I split a ham sandwich which was served on homemade bread and Aden had the fish & chips which were huge chunks of flaky white fish. Tory’s personal-sized pizza was just OK but otherwise we were very impressed with our deli meals.

There was a lot of activity happening on Charles Darwin Street in downtown Santa Cruz as many locals celebrated the holiday weekend. Dozens of kids were swimming near the pier and a wood-carving completion was taking place in the town plaza. The streets of Santa Cruz were alive with activity on a Saturday afternoon.

After lunch, we grabbed our bags from Hotel Ninfa and walked two blocks to the Gaviota Ferry checkpoint. Good-bye Santa Cruz! It was good to see the “locals” side of life in the Galapagos.

After we checked in with our pre-booked tickets, Galapagos agricultural security scanned our bags for unwanted pests/invasive species. We waited in line on the pier for about 30 minutes next to a smelly sea lion asleep on a city bench.

Eventually, we loaded onto a small water taxi which brought us out to the Gaviota Ferry anchored in the bay. There were about 30 seats total on the ferry.

I couldn’t decide if it was best to sit in the front of the boat or toward the back so we ended up somewhere in the middle. In any case, Andi and I knew it’d be a bumpy, hot two-hour ride from one island to the other without any stopping in between.

Just as we expected, the boat bounced up and down with a thud over and over against the waves. To make matters worse, there was hardly any air moving circulating on the boat. The best thing we could do was put in our ear buds, turn the volume on high and listen to a podcast to pass the time while looking straight ahead.

Two people threw up behind us and the boat attended hopped right up with a rag and a spray bottle to clean it up. I’m guessing that happens quite a bit on the ferry because he didn’t seem phased. I brought along gallon-size ziploc bags with us just in case anyone in our family felt sick, but luckily we all did OK.

Andi and I now could see how fortunate we were to have visited the remote islands Fernandina, Isabela, Santiago and North Seymour by cruise boat. We hardly felt the waves at all while we were on the yacht. Traveling from Santa Cruz to San Cristobal by speed boat was a rough ride & we weren’t sure we wanted to do that again by signing up for day-long water tour.

Regardless, we made it safely to San Cristobal Island — the Galapagos’s capitol city. San Cristobal is much smaller than Santa Cruz with around 7,000 residents. Andi booked us a room at Hotel Katarma for three nights. The room had four separate beds so everyone would have their own space to sleep. One thing that’s interesting about hotels in Ecuador is that customers are charged by number of guests, not a flat fee per room. For that reason, this hotel room was nearly $150/night for our family of four which is a bit on the pricey side for a bathroom and four beds.

We were all in desperate need for some food and a glass of wine after our bumpy ferry ride, so after we checked into our hotel we walked a few blocks into downtown San Cristobal to check out the town and grab a bite to eat. We were feeling very indecisive about what kind of food we wanted, and ended up choosing a seafood spot that looked like it had the most number of customers. Aden discovered fried shrimp and that’s been his go-to most recently. Andi ordered the fish and Tory and I split a chicken schwarma wrap. The food was just OK here and the service was slow. Plus, I think we were all ready to be done adventuring for the day.

On the walk back to the hotel, we stopped at an ice cream shop for a treat. Tory and Aden each ordered cones. Andi went big with a brownie sundae that included three scoops of ice cream. Of course, we all had to help him finish it.

Tomorrow, we’re excited to see the island of San Cristobal.