Adventure Ends Day 15

Today we left Santa Cruz island and headed for home. We had an incredible trip. We rediscovered the meaning of a few vocabulary words -extinction, preservation, evolution, endangered, endemic and conservation. We saw all of these words in action on the islands.

Our path for home included a variety of means of transportation on our way to Baltra Airport.

A taxi ride to the ferry dock.

Los Gemelos Watershed Area (limited water in islands)

Only a few more minutes before the ferry leaves.

We are the last ones on the ferry.

We boarded for the ten minute crossing to Baltra Island.

Running for the bus

The bus is waiting to take us to the airport.

Baltra Airport

We begin the two hour flight to Guayaquil Airport.

 Good-bye to the Galapagos Islands.

Flying into Simon Bolivar Airport.

We had an eight hour over lay in Guayaquil so we took a taxi into the city and had lunch at a restaurant at the Mall del Sol.

During our layover at Simon Bolivar Airport we ran into Dell Cloud & Marion Lunde Cloud, Kenny Lunde and his wife Sharon. Some of you may remember Dell and Marion from went we went to Castleton State College . Marion and her brother Kenny, who were from Barre, had a camp in Lake Elmore. We hadn't seen any of them for years so we had a great time catching up on all the past news. We traveled together from Guayaquil to Burlington International Airport together. Our flight left at 10:00 PM and arrived at JFK at 4:30 AM.

When we arrived at JFK we had a 4 1/2 hour wait and then got on JetBlue and were in Burlington by 10:00 AM. We found our car, which had been left for us at the airport, and drove home.

We were glad to get home but adjusting to the cold was a shock to our systems.

Traveling in the Galapagos Islands wasn't as expensive as we had planned. We were able to travel on a reasonable budget. We did not take multi-day boat tours, we arranged our tours with local tour agencies. There are a lot of inexpensive places to stay and you don't need to make reservations in advance if you are willing to walk around town looking for a place to stay when you get on the islands. Food prices varied but you could eat a supper meal for under $10.00.

Our thanks to all of you for following our blog and letting us share this trip with you.
Jane & Charlie

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Santa Cruz Day 14

Today is our last full day in the Galapagos. Today we are headed to Playa Tortuga. This is supposed to be one of the most beautiful beaches in the Galapagos.
The beach is outside of town so you have to walk to get there. It is about a 45 minute walk.

The steps up to the entrance

Looking out from the top over Santa Cruz

The walk to the beach

A long the path

Galapagos Giant Cactus is the only cactus in the world that grows as a tree.

It's a long walk.

Just a little more

The beach looking south

Going North

Charlie's beach art

We continued along the shore were we walked into this incredible cactus forest. It was one of the most beautiful sights we had seen.

Cactus Forest

As we walked on a path along the rock wall, we see a Blur Footed Boobie

We headed to this protected cove for a dip. A great day at the beach, very hot. We are undecided if this beach is more beautiful than the one on Isla Isabela. We finished the day by having dinner with professor David from Wisconsin.

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Santa Cruz Day 13 Feb1 Afternoon

We've had a lot of trouble trying to publish our blog as the internet service often shuts down and we lose our work. Posting a lot of pictures at one time is a very lengthy process. Therefore, this is part two of Day 13. We want to share some pictures of Santa Cruz with you.
Angelique Art Gallery was the neatest place in all of Santa Cruz. Sarah painted Galapagos animals on silk. She also sold her paintings and other items in her shop. We bought a pillow cover and two scarves that were painted on silk.

This dog was leading his friend down the street. Check out the lease in the big dog's mouth!

Charles Darwin Avenue being repaved with brick.

Restaurant in the center of town

Baltra Avenue Tienda

$1.47 per liter for gas

Center of town square, round about

Town center

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Santa Cruz -Darwin Center

This morning we left Isla Isabela on the 6:00AM speed boat. The crossing to Santa Cruz took only about an 1.5 hours. Again, we sat up top with the captain.

Weather when we left

Captain

Looks like a speedy trip

When we arrived in Santa Cruz we found a hotel to stay in, Hotel Lirio del Mar. ($30.00/night) We left our bags in the room and headed out to find some breakfast.

We found a cute little restaurant and had our first really good cup of coffee on this whole trip, expresso.

Coffee Stop

We next headed for the Charles Darwin Research Center but on the way we passed the local fish market. The fishermen off loaded their fish at this market where it was cut up, sold or left whole and trucked off to some place. The pelicans, Frigate birds and sea lions were there getting there share of the fish.

Morning Catch

After the scraps.

Being feed the Scraps

Waiting for their Share

The Charles Darwin Research Center encompasses quite a large area. There is an information center, housing and eating facility for the researchers that live on site, large tortuga breeding center, land iquana pens, administration offices, natural garden area and walkways that connect everything together.

Entrance to Darwin Center

Path to Darwin Center

The CDRC has five species of Tortugas (tortoises) that they are trying to bring back from extinction. They hatch the eggs, raise the tortoises and when they are around five years old they release them back to the island they originally came from.

5-years

15 years

25+ years

  Lonesome George died this summer and his death meant the extinction of the Pinta Tortugas.

The Center has a horticulture area where they are raising plants to revive the original fauna and flora.  The plant nursery is

where they are trying to reestablish plants that are on the brink of extinction. They raise the plants and then replant them on the islands where they were originally found.

The center is trying to breed these land iguanas as they are in danger of extinction.

Very Poisonous but not to tortoises