Renee's Visit to Ecuador (Part 3: Galapagos Day 4 & 5!)

On our fourth day in the Galapagos, we headed to the highlands of Santa Cruz Island where we saw twin volcanic craters, crawled through a muddy lava tunnel, and saw where the Giant Galapagos Tortoises roam freely. We were able to see the tortoises munching on maracuya (passion fruit) and barreling through the brush (it's pretty impressive). There were also a lot of shops to buy souvenirs, but since we aren't really souvenir people, I just took photos!

One of the twin craters- doesn't look as impressive in photo!

The tunnel was created through flowing lava

One of the many giant tortoises- this one was probably half the size of me, and probably quite old

Close up shot- ET anyone?

And the strangest looking tortoise of them all! =D

Blue footed boobie souvenirs!

Hungry pelican!

For lunch we got to relax at an oceanside hotel (the Finch Bay Eco Hotel in Puerto Ayora). It was nice to have a lunch outside with the ocean waves in front of us. The meal was really nice and we had a yummy dessert of maracuya cream puffs! For some shocking reason, I have no photos of our meal!

After that, we headed to the Charles Darwin Research Station where they have a rearing in captivity program. It was amazing to see how tiny the baby tortoises are (even the ones that are 4 or 5 years old!) after seeing the larger tortoises that are closer to 100 years. They then release them into the islands to repopulate.

One of the things I was really looking forward to was seeing Lonesome George. He is the only one of his kind (Pinta Island Tortoise) and is known as the rarest animal on the planet. Unfortunately, we were able to see where he lives and the two female tortoises that live in his pen with him (they are trying to breed). He was probably in hiding somewhere because we couldn't spot him, but it was quite disappointing. =( Hence why I didn't come home with a Lonesome George shirt.

Have you seen this tortoise?

However they had plenty of other tortoises at the Charles Darwin Center, as well as land iguanas at the research station.

Male tortoise unsuccessfully trying to mate with another male tortoise

Land iguana

This tortoise's neck was quite impressive- I was hoping we would see him lifting his head to grab a bite to eat!

After our time at the Charles Darwin Research Station we had a chance to walk into town to do a little bit of souvenir shopping. Adam picked up some coffee and a shirt for his parents, and Renee found some great purchases too. She is regretful that she didn't pick up the ceramic Sally Lightfoot Crab piggy bank though!

Our last night on the ship, they brought on some entertainment and we also had a great final meal! Then the following morning (May 28th), we departed to San Cristobal where we visited the museum and then headed into town for more souvenir shopping. It was quite a cute little town and we had a good time just strolling about.

Lazy sea lions making their homes on boats in the dock

San Cristobal Island

We flew out around noon and were happy campers (as seen in the photo below of Adam and Renee getting onto the plane), oblivious to the adventure we would soon have. I made the mistake of saying to Renee while we were taking off, "Wow, everything went so smoothly in the Galapagos! There were no issues at all! Usually when traveling, some snafoo comes up." And no sooner had I said this, an announcement is made on the plane that Volcan Tungurahua had erupted and an ash cloud was in Guayaquil, causing the airport to be closed down. As a  result, our plane would be diverted to Manta.

Well, this was quite unfortunate for us, because our plan was to arrive in Guayaquil around 2pm and hop on a plane to Loja at 4pm. So we debated what to do and decided that we would take a bus from Manta to Guayaquil (which took about 4 hours) and then stay overnight in Guayaquil and make our way to Loja the following day. On the bright side, Renee got to see some of the towns along the coast and the houses made of caña, and experienced the Ecuadorian bus rides (bad action movie included!).

At the airport in Manta with all the other confused passengers. Many were heading back home to England or the US so they were concerned about if they would make it out!

Renee biting into our free snack on the bus (thankfully Metropolitan Touring arranged a bus to take us from Manta to Guayaquil so we didn't have to pay for it).

So all in all, everything in the Galapagos went so smoothly and I would highly recommend the MV Santa Cruz to anyone who wants to visit the islands but be on a larger ship for seasickness issues. If only the rest of Ecuador had their tourism down the way they have it down in the Galapagos! That would just make having visitors so much easier! 

A continuation of Renee's Adventure in Ecuador will continue in another post!