December 27th, 2021
I have to admit that when originally planned to come to
Ecuador, I briefly thought about the Galapagos Islands but somewhat dismissed
it. I’d always heard that it was quite
expensive, and I wasn’t sure if I had the time for it but c’mon, when in
Rome… I figured that I may never be in
Ecuador again so I should definitely go.
In future years, you look back on the amazing experiences you’ve had and
how awesome it was, but you never think “Geez, I wish I still had that $1500”.
While in Montanita at Casa del Sol, thankfully Jackson and
Athena brought up the fact that I needed a Covid PCR test to go to the
Galapagos. What?!? Aren’t we still in the same country? Yup, but it is still required. Jackson made it as painless as possible as he
arranged a guy to come to the guesthouse to do the test and I received the
results the day before I had to fly out.
Entering the Guayaquil Airport:
Hard to tell from the video, but they are spraying some kind of disinfectant into the overhead compartments.
The bus ride over the Santa Cruz was interesting. It began with fairly barren land with
volcanic rock and a bit of vegetation.
That morphed into a greener landscape with 10 foot trees and lush
undergrowth. As we reached the middle
and high point of the island (remember, this land was made by a volcano), it
got chilly compared to the humid area we came from. As we began to descend, there was the first
sign of human habitation with a few farms lining the road. Then boom, the first sighting of a giant
tortoise, then another and another…then a field of bumpy mounds with tall grass
where I saw more tortoises in the span of a few hundred meters than the rest of
my life combined! Sweet, but I didn’t
have my camera ready…
We arrived at the docks, at the end of the main road of
town, and I walked the 6-7 blocks to my accommodation, Hostal White House. There were two 10-year-old boys by the front
desk in the courtyard and one of them named Edison, began the process of
checking me in. Then his dad, Edison
Senior, took over. It really isn’t a
hostel, it’s a small hotel with seven rooms on two levels that open onto the
courtyard. The room was decent, nice and
clean with a single and double bed.
Later I ventured out to get the lay of the land and to also
try and find a scuba centre to book some dives for when I returned from
Isabella Island and to maybe reserve some other excursions. The most popular dive site seemed to be
Gordon’s Rock, where hammerhead sharks are prevalent. It’s been 6 years since I last dove, which
was a wicked dive in Panama where I was a 10 feet away from some 15 meter long
whale sharks…amazing to say the least! I
was told that Gordon’s Rock was probably not a good dive to get “back in the
water” with and one shop said I could go but I would require a dive master just
for me and that would add an additional $120 to the already $170 for 2 dives. That’s an expensive day as these prices are
in US dollars. I opted to go with
another store that had availability on the 31st for a couple of
easier dive sites and then I could dive at Gordon’s on January 2nd as
nobody is diving on New Year’s Day, for the obvious reasons. That sounded perfect, so I booked the trip.
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