Santa Cruz

Unlike our first island hop, Isabela to Santa Cruz was done by boat (see the addendum below for my thoughts about inter island boat travel).  At least the early morning trip was a smooth one.  Luckily we had managed to book an apartment in Puerto Ayora which meant we could do some of our own catering for a change.  By the time we arrived we were slowing down some, we felt we'd seen much of the wildlife the islands offered and frankly, we were exhausted. So we didn't venture too far from Puerto Ayora.

One nice place near town we did visit (Eric went twice) was Tortuga bay which was exactly what you would expect a tropical beach to look like.  In fact it had two beaches, one a surf beach and one a quiet cove where you could snorkel with barely a ripple.  There wasn't much wildlife here except a few Iguanas (and one turtle) but the warm water was great for a swim nevertheless.

As with San Cristobal we took a taxi trip to the highlands, crawling in Lava tubes...

Amazing how the lava solidified in the shape of a wooden floor

And tortoise shells...

And visiting tortoises who seemed much more aggressive than on the other islands.

This guy wasn't too keen on letting us past

Despite appearances these tortoises aren't mating. It's a dominant male bullying a younger rival.

We also dropped in on the Charles Darwin Research Station where we saw lots of live tortoises being bred for reintroduction into the wild and the preserved body of one very famous dead tortoise (Lonesome George).

After another four days of scorching weather we packed our bags for Orlando.

All in all we probably didn't do as much activity as we had expected or hoped on the islands.  In hindsight we should have had a longer break between the Inca trail and the Galapagos to freshen up. Nevertheless we still saw some amazing sights during our 12 day visit, particularly in and around the water. The marine and terrestrial wildlife makes it a very special place.

Addendum...  Five things not so good about Galapagos:

1. The sun is brutal. Especially on the beach and around lava fields. Add a dash of humidity and it just wilts you.

Shelter from the sun during the day

2. Boating safety (or lack of).  For starters water taxis (where the first six people onboard get the life jackets and the rest don't) are often heavily loaded with landlubbers/fat tourists and piles of luggage and ride very low to the water.  One will sink sooner or later.

Then there is the inter-island "ferry service" which involves taking a luxury fishing boat, filling it with the maximum possible number of tourists and bags (with the life jackets all kept forward in the bow where no passenger could possibly get to them in an emergency), strap on 800hp of outboard motors, hand out the sick bags and floor it for two hours to the next island.

3. Food choices are very limited and quite expensive.  On Isabela (the least populated island we visited) we ate out every meal.  If you're staying in a hotel on Isabela and can't cook, the only thing worth buying from the shops were drinks and ice creams. In particular bread was non existent.

4. Over regulation in the Galapagos NP. This is a dig more at the tourists than the administration.  I suspect if tourists could be trusted to do the right thing, there wouldn't be so many restrictions - in particular the requirement to take a guide anywhere you go in the park means it costs oodles of money to tour the best places. But it is a fragile and sensitive environment so it is what it is.

5. Papaya, the worlds most disgusting fruit.  Whether in fruit salad (basically a pile of papaya chunks with a few token pieces of pineapple on top) or as juice, it's guaranteed to turn your stomach.  Of course when we visited it must have been right in the middle of papaya season.