Galapagos Islands: South Island Cruise

We finished our north island boat cruise on Sunday and stayed the night in Santa Cruz Island at Salinas hostel; an average place with cold water but it only cost $25, so what can you expect? I still felt like I was on a boat for about 24 hours and was swaying all over the place. I even fell over in the shower while washing my hair.

Monday.

We tried to organise another cruise to take us to the southern islands but all the tour companies told us that the boats doing this route had left on Sunday. However, as the Galapagos is a Catholic country everything was closed on Sunday, so we had no chance to book anything. Muran Tour company told us about one boat they had, but it was out of our price range at $800. We decided the best plan was to sack the boat off and just get ferries to the islands ourselves and book our own excursions and accommodation.

With that decision made, we left Salinas to hunt out another hostel with hot water. The Italian couple from the Guantanamera boat were staying at a place called Gardner hostel up the road but they had no room, so we went to Flamingos over the road. At 1pm went back to Muran tour company, opposite Salinas, to book a day trip around Santa Cruz. The guy who worked there went through all the paper work for the day cruise and just at the point of taking our money, gave us a discounted price for the expensive boat. It went from $800 to $700. We told him we didn’t have that much money, but thanks. He told us to wait a minute, got on the phone and spoke to someone from the boat. The price came down to $650. We told him we really appreciated it, but we just didn’t have the money. He told us the boat was a first class boat and usually sells for $2,500 for 5 days. We said that’s very lovely and we appreciate your effort, but we physically don’t have that much money.

Then he showed us some pictures… and we decided we probably could find the money somehow but maybe it would be better if it was a little bit cheaper. We got him down to $620 which we realised was a fucking good deal when we arrived at the boat! It seemed like fate; once again, we had booked a hostel room and had to abandon it and once again we had booked a boat an hour before it was due to depart. It seemed like this was the only way we were able to hook a deal, to fork out for a room and leave it until the eleventh hour.

We were taken to our new boat called Seaman II. It was indeed a first class boat:

http://www.galapagosisland.net/cruises/seaman-ii-luxury-cruise/index.html

The other guests were a little different too, compared to The Guantanamera but fortunately there was a great young couple from Australia who we spent most of our time with: Jake and Sarah. The others were a little stuffy. The boat was a flash looking 22m catamaran with a bar, lounge area and several deck areas to hang about and sunbathe. It should have cost $2,400 for 5 days – so we definitely got a good deal! We one of the best rooms on the boat, with windows on 2 sides, loads of space and a lovely bathroom with a great hot shower.  On our first evening all of the staff came to greet us in proper starched white uniforms, looking dead formal and introducing themselves one by one, telling us their role on the boat.

Pads expressing his happiness with our room:

San Cristobal

On our first day we went to San Cristobal Island. We walked around the island and saw a single lonely wild giant tortoise who was making his way up to the highlands, where they go to mate.  While snorkeling I swam with my first sealion and turtle but they weren’t particularly friendly and darted off when I got too near. Other than that there were just a lot of crabs, called Sally Lightfoot crabs which are fairly prolific in this area.

After lunch we went to a different bay for more walking. It was baking hot and we walked up an old volcano to to the top for the nice view; we saw some dolphins offshore, more boobies, a pelican and the usual lava lizards and iguanas, which are everywhere.

Breakfast, lunch and dinner were excellent on this boat with great selections every time. Tons of fruit, fresh fruit juices, freshly cooked eggs of your choosing for breakfast and salads accompanied every meal. Each time we finished snorkelling hot chocolcate and biscuits were waiting for us to warm us up. Sleeping was difficult for the first couple of days, the boat was very rocky compared to the last one and the dropping and pulling up the anchor was so loud, waking us up every day at about 4am. Small price to pay though I suppose!

Espanola

The next day we went to Espanola. As every other day, were up at 7am for breakfast and out snorkeling at 8am. We swam along the rock edge of a little islet nearby and saw loads of brightly coloured fish, a sting ray and we were lucky enough to have about 8 or 9 sealions come and swim with us. They generally love swimming with people; circling you and swimming past you really quickly. Very interactive. They love it when you blow bubbles, so they swim at you at speed with their mouths open to scare you, as they have come to know that most people panic and end up blowing bubbles as a reaction, but they only do this playfully. If you just blow bubbles at them, they hover in the water making eye contact with you mesmorised, then more and more come over out of curiosity. Back on the boat, after our hot chocolates we went for another walk and saw cotton growing naturally in the wild, which I had never really thought about before.

After another great lunch we went to another beach on Espanola which had the most gorgeous white sand and the biggest colony of sealions in the Galapagos. This was the best beach we have come across. The sealions were not as playful as the ones from earlier – as much as I stalked them in the water, trying to get them to swim with me – they kept swimming off.

Floreana

On the last full day we went to Floreana Island. I was extremely pissed off to be told that we would not be visiting the Devils Crown, the best snorkeling point in all of the Galapagos and I let my feelings be known. As usual, it made no difference. The itinerary is set by the National Park; they changed our itinerary and there was nothing anybody could do about it. Grr.

We went snorkeling in the morning at 8am, in the rain. We went to a place called ‘Champion’ where we swam along the rocks of an island again. Literally about 40 sealions came and swam with us, circling us, diving down and staring right at us as we blew bubbles in their faces. The others got bored after a few minutes… I ended up spending about 45 minutes with them until I was forced on by the guide. The sealife was excellent here, brightly coloured fish, a couple of reef sharks, a Galapagos shark and some rays. The Japanese guy from our boat had an underwater camera and is sending me some underwater pics, hopefully.

In the afternoon we went to a lovely beach where turtles had been laying their eggs as it is egg laying season. There were loads of them in the sea, lolling around in the shallow water. I wanted to get in with the turtles but swimming is prohibited on that beach, to protect them and to encourage them to come back. I got as near as I could, but the sea was filled with sting rays for about 10 foot from the shore line in to the sea, so was slightly hazardous trying to step round them. They had to drag me away from there too.

Diving bird:

On our last night, the staff all came out again in their lovely starched uniforms to say goodbye and have a drink with us. The staff were really lovely on this boat but slightly more reserved and more formal than the previous boat. We’d have liked to have an evening getting drunk with them as they looked good fun.

The staff in more casual attire, our guide Carlos is in the middle:

Our last day on the cruise was short and sweet. We had a plane to catch back to Ecuador at 10.45am. We were up at 6am, breakfast at 7am and off the boat by 8am. We were taken to the Darwin Research Centre on Santa Cruz, where they breed tortoises to put back in to the wild. The locals used to eat all the tortoises so the numbers dwindling dramatically on many of the islands. In fact, on one island, Pinta, only one tortoise was found. He is the last of his species and is known as Lonesome George for this reason. He’s about 90 years old – no one knows exactly how old for sure – and is quite famous in the Galapagos. He now lives with 2 females in a private enclosure to keep him safe and is fed by the staff, rather than having to scavenge for his own food. He has a little pond to swim in and a house to sleep in. Super Diego, another tortoise, has successfully bred 1,700 baby tortoises in captivity, as well as teaching other males how to successfully mate. He is the second most famous tortoise.

Some giant tortoises (look a bit like ET):

After the Darwin Centre visit, we flew back to Guayaquil with our new Australian friends and were treated to some rather tasty business class seats. We stayed overnight in a hostel called Casa de Romero in downtown about 20 mins from the airport. The hostel was quite cute but the traffic outside was unbearably loud. We went for a walk around Guayaquil in search for food and found literally nothing open except McDonalds, on a Friday night! Not quite party central here. We ended up in a hotel restaurant called The Palace and got some decent food there. It was really nice to be able to spend our last night with Jake and Sarah, who made our boat trip all the more enjoyable.

Next plan of action is to fly from Guayaquil to Lima tomorrow morning, then we have our flight back to Manchester at 8pm. We have about 10 hours to kill in Lima, so we’ll drop our bags at left luggage and have a day around the city seeing the sights.