Santa Cruz, Galapagos Islands

We arrived on Santa Cruz in the Glapagos three or four days ago. We first flew from Guayaquil to Baltra Island, and took a short ferry ride from Baltra to Santa Cruz. We almost did not make it to the islands at all. We arrived at the Guayaquil airport from Peurto Lopez and found out that all flights to the Galapagos were booked solid until mid-September. A friendly guy working behind the Tame Airlines ticket counter suggested that there might be a chance to get onboard if we arrived early in the morning and stood in the "waiting list" line. With few other options, we resolved to sleep in the airport overnight in order to secure a first position in line.

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.