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Charity and Jenn: Our South America Adventure

Galapagos San Cristobal Island Jul 17, 2006

This morning we had to get up very early to give us time to find a flight to the Galapagos. We decided we have seen all we needed to see in Quito and were ready for our next move. We arrived at the airport around 6:20am and had to talk to several counters with many people telling us it would not be possible to get on a flight today. Finally they found a flight for us to San Cristobal which is a less populated island leaving at 9:45am. Before we got on the flight we met a girl from New York, who speaks perfect Spanish, and also works at the college on the island. She moved seats to sit next to us on the plane and began telling us all the places we needed to check out while we are on the islands. It was like having our own tour guide. Upon arriving on the island you must pay a $100 entrance fee because it is a national park, on top of the $369 flight. We took a cab the hostel which was both recommended by our lonely planet book and by our private tour guide called hotel san francisco. It is very rugged and unkept but we liked how cheap and close it is to the ocean. The women didn't speak any English but after Jenn found out that there was an ocean view room, she spent 5 minutes using our spanish book trying to ask her for that room instead of the one she gave us. Our room is perfect with 3 beds, a beautiful view, a color spanish speaking television, $8 a night and a cold shower. We don't mind because it is so hot here, around 75 - 80 decrees. We are on Mountain standard time which is only 1 hour difference from Cali or Seattle. This afternoon we had a great lunch watching a monk seal riding around in the waves, watching the albastross fly overhead and watching a young boy swing on a swing. We talked about how much we appreciate that we can relax and how fortunate we have been so far on our trip. Almost like God is making up for our misfortunes in New York. Tomorrow we hope to go Kayaking and snorkel with the monk seals and hike down to a secluded beach where we can also snorkel. We tried to get on a snorkel boat but 8-10 people are needed for them to take a tour. He said that there isn't many tourists on the island right now because they are all out on the $1000 cruises that last only 8 days. We are pretty excited about doing this trip on our own because according to the books we have read and the other travelers at the hostels it is more difficult to independently travel on the islands because touristy stuff is not readily available. Sounds perfect for us. Our big goals are to be able to see a hammerhead sharks, large Iguanas and blue foot boobies, but we'll see. We have a few more islands to check out.

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