Ecuador: Galapagos Day One

​Today was Ruth’s birthday. And a long  travel day.

We were up and out early to catch our flight to Galapagos.  Unfortunately, the flight was delayed, so we had some wait time in the airport.  Fortunately, there wasn’t a lot of impact on our day in Galapagos.

After arriving around 1:30, seeing our first iguana and getting through the special permitting process required for the National Park, we took a public bus and a ferry to get to our bus.

Once on the bus, on the Island of Santa Cruz, our tour began. Our Galapagos guide, Roberto, told us about the geology and ecosystem of the islands, and some of his story of growing up there.

We turned off the main road, and within a few minutes the cows in the fields turned into Giant Tortoises.  They were Huge!  We arrived at Rancho Pacifico, which was our restaurant, surrounded by fields of grass with 10-15 tortoises in the near and far distance. The owner used to raise cows, but now he cuts down the big trees so more grass will grow, to encourage the turtle population. Because most of the island is a national park, no one can touch or feed the turtles, or any other creatures.  

We had an excellent late lunch, a talk on the tortoises, complete with skeletons to demonstrate the features. Then we went walking in the fields in the rain to get up close to the magnificent animals.

When we had our fill of walking in the rain, we got back in the bus and went to the port, where we took the dinghy/zodiacs to our ship.  We had our orientation and got settled and then dinner.

At the end of dinner the crew did a great job of making Mom feel special - a wonderful cake beautifully decorated, a birthday hat and sash, singing and music.  It was really fun.

After dinner we had our first port talk, with lots of maps and photos. With the early start and time change, we were tired and went to bed soon after the port talk