Day 273
Las Ninfas, Santa cruz Island, Galapagos Islands, Ecuador, South America
After our very sound sleep at the Best Western in Guayaquil we woke up to a miserable breakfast! (How can Best Western Hotels differ so much? Or are we just getting used to breakfasts in South America being next to superb?) It consisted of a bun and jam....and that was it! Not that we need anything more spectacular, because we really need to start going easy on our diets...
The lady that picked us up from the airport yesterday was there to meet us at 9am and off we went to the airport..
And that´s when the fun began.
The Galapagos flights were delayed!
All the announcements were in Spanish (we must do some more practice with our Spanish!) and so we were not sure whether we were lining up for the Quito flight or the Baltra flight! IN the end..we just lined up for anything that came..and whatever we were lining up for didn´t come..because an hour later, we were still lined up!
The only other tourists were a mob of obnoxious Americans who pushed in and decided they were God´s gift to the universe....the rest were Spanish looking and speaking. Weird, because we thought it was such a tourist place to go. But we were wrong, there were not many at all..and we were smugly pleased about that!
After i decided to remedy the fact that the American tourists got ahead of everyone...and go to the guy and point and try to get my message across, with the support of the spanish people that were all waiting in front of us..AND THEM...we were told the plane was two hours late.
We took our space in the line (glaring at the pushers iners) and then..walah, out of nowhere came someone calling our name and getting us through the crowds to check in...(where were they in the beginning?)
Not that that really made anything any easier..because we still had to wait. But it was nice to get in front of those who pushed in!!!! Half my face smiled at them and the other half sympathised with the other´s who were still waiting and were originally in front of us!
The proposed two hour late comment turned into five hours late...
At THREE OCLOCK we were told we could go through the boarding gate...
And we ended up waiting in the boarding lounge until 4pm when they finally said we were boarding......
At 4.20 and after a HUGE headache (literally..i think i was dehydrated!) we boarded the plane to Baltra..and arrived one and a half hours later. All day for 1 1/2 hours! Would have been quicker to swim! We had to turn the clocks back an hour because the Galapagos Islands are an hour behind the mainland Eucador. So it was 6pm when we arrived...but 5pm by their time.
What was really weird, was when we arrived in Baltra everyone on the plane clapped. I always find this unnerving...
After arriving in Baltra we hopped on a bus (no joke, it was like a sardine can full of us litle fish!) and fifteen minutes later we arrived at the Baltra port and got loaded into a boat that took us to Puerto Ayora which is the port on Santa Cruz Island.
Then we caught another bus...and we were atonished by the climate..and the environment! No wonder Darwin was inspired to formulate his evolutionary theories here! When we were near the shore..there were trees that were completely leafless....and the climate was hot and dry...and there were cactus everywhere!
The further we drove...the more rain foresty it got!! The leaves were dense...the soil was black and volcanic..and there it was raining!
It was the ODDEST thing!!! That hour drive was about the most fascinating drive we´ve had..we kept looking out the window to see differnt environments......just incredible!! We kept taking pictures..and the view kept changing. We loved it!
There was no falling asleep on that hour´s bus journey! (As i usually would on a bus!)
We arrived at the hotel Las Ninfas at 7.45pm pm and checked in, giving all our tickets and tour information to reception! (silly move!)
Dinner was served straight away..and that´s when we met the rest of the group we were to be on tour with....and all spoke...spanish!
We were the only lucky tourists!
We wondered if we would just be spending the time sightseeing and not learning anything about anything due to the language barrier!
We wished we knew more Spanish!!!!!!!
We didn´t really know what was in store..except that breakfast was at 7am!
