Flying to the Galapagos islands from Quito is via Guayaquil...
so there is a short stopover there........ and a bug spray of the interior of the plane before arrival!
The airport is on a small island, Baltra.... which had 3000 US military during the Second World War.
The landing strip looked alarmingly short!
One has to take a bus to the small port, then a very short ride across to the larger Santa Cruz island......
Arrival at our hotel The Royal Palm was also interesting....... it was raining...heavily! Something we would get used to! So we were met with lots of umbrellas!
We found out later that this is fairly normal in this Highlands area of the island ......in the rainy season... which runs October to March! However once once descends towards the coast it immediately becomes dry and sunny!
And indeed the umbrellas even joined us on the boat. on our days out..... supposedly for shade!
After lunch we went south on the island to El Garrapatero beach. Here we saw our first iguana. However it blended so well into the volcanic rock that it was almost impossible to see! Can you find it?? ( left of centre and towards the top of the black!)
...... the coastline was a little bleak.....
Next morning it was back on the bus to go back to the port to take our yacht......
....to the small island of North Seymour......
Here we did see some more colorful iguanas! Almost immediately upon arrival!
In fact I almost stepped on one! They have no fear... I did!
There were lots of interesting birds pointed out to us......but difficult to photograph!
However this one was next to an iguana and not in flight!
There were also a lot of seals..........
this one greeted us on arrival.........
This one unbelievably scaled the cliff face........
but on getting closer.....he seems quite relaxed!!
The island had very little vegetation.......
.......and was very windy........ in fact too windy to use the umbrellas we were advised to bring along!!
so there is a short stopover there........ and a bug spray of the interior of the plane before arrival!
The airport is on a small island, Baltra.... which had 3000 US military during the Second World War.
The landing strip looked alarmingly short!
One has to take a bus to the small port, then a very short ride across to the larger Santa Cruz island......
....en route across we saw our first wildlife....... not being too into birds I had no idea what it was.... but others seemed impressed!
The road to the hotel was interesting with a road sign we had never seen before.......
....and indeed there was one crossing!
Arrival at our hotel The Royal Palm was also interesting....... it was raining...heavily! Something we would get used to! So we were met with lots of umbrellas!
We found out later that this is fairly normal in this Highlands area of the island ......in the rainy season... which runs October to March! However once once descends towards the coast it immediately becomes dry and sunny!
And indeed the umbrellas even joined us on the boat. on our days out..... supposedly for shade!
After lunch we went south on the island to El Garrapatero beach. Here we saw our first iguana. However it blended so well into the volcanic rock that it was almost impossible to see! Can you find it?? ( left of centre and towards the top of the black!)
Next morning it was back on the bus to go back to the port to take our yacht......
....to the small island of North Seymour......
Here we did see some more colorful iguanas! Almost immediately upon arrival!
There were lots of interesting birds pointed out to us......but difficult to photograph!
However this one was next to an iguana and not in flight!
There were also a lot of seals..........
this one greeted us on arrival.........
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