Thursday, August 27, 2009
On Some Faraway Beach
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
The Sundry Sights
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
More Flora, More Fauna
Under the Sea
Saturday, August 8, 2009
Greetings from Narnia
You can see a sea lion if you look closely.
Not sure what kind of lizard, but there are lots of them. They were licking out their breakfast from the pores in the rocks along the bay. There were many crabs too, but they were more camera shy.
We have been on the Island of Santa Cruz for a week now. We were initially off to a slow start, due to some food-borne bacterial infection that afflicted Kim. For the first few days, Kim was in bed dealing with a fever, headache, aching joints and intestinal unpleasantries. A visit to the island´s doctor and a prescription of Cipro did the trick. We´re back and better than ever and we´ve now been to the beach at Tortuga bay for a swim and yesterday we went snorkelling at the Charles Darwin research station (I saw a sea turtle). Tomorrow we sheduled a boat tour of the bay, snorkelling included.
We start our mornings with a cafe con leche at a restaurant on the bay. Internet costs more here than on the mainland, $2 per hour as opposed to $1. The ice cream bars are also more expensive here. The animals really are very tame and we´ve already seen iguannas, giant tortoises, sea lions, pelicans, crabs, and lizards aplenty.
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Santa Cruz, Galapagos Islands
Thankfully, we did not have to do that. After spending a few hours in the airport (China Wok for dinner), I asked another woman behind the Tame ticket counter if the airport were indeed open all night and if she thought it would be a good idea to sleep in line. She didn´t like the sound of that and said hold on a second... I may be able to help you. In a few minutes, we had two round trip tickets to the Galapagos in hand for the following day´s 11 am flight.
Since we didn´t have to sleep on the floor of an airport, we splurged on a room at the Sheraton (again after being told that there were no rooms and nothing could be done) and enjoyed hot showers, shampoo, two giant beds, air conditioning and Transformers on a wide screen flat panal tv. No mosquitoes!
Crossing from Baltra to Santa Cruz, we were greeted by crystal blue waters and a sea lion sunning on a red buoy.
It was a forty-five minute drive across the island to Puerto Ayora. Our gracious hosts Jill and Javier have really made us feel at home. We inherited their in-town apartment and they moved into a beautiful house in a more secluded area on the island.