February 2nd & 3rd, 2017

Days 310 & 311: Travel to Galápagos

Getting from Argentina to the Galápagos Islands, located in the Pacific Ocean 1,000KM off the coast of Ecuador, was a LOOOOONG trip, that required an overnight stay in Guayaquil, Ecuador along the way. We left Buenos Aires just before noon and flew to Santiago (yay, Chile!) for a 2hr layover. Luckily, we did not have to go through customs again, so we had plenty of time for a late lunch/early dinner with sparkling wine before our flight to Ecuador.

 

Getting ready for 3 flights and 2 days of travel with a strong shot of espresso in the EZE lounge

 

Even a short layover in Chile is delightful – I love this country!

As we arrived in Guayaquil late in the evening and had an early flight out the next day, there was no time for any sightseeing. Igor found an Air B&B-type apartment rental near the airport, which included pick-up and drop-off, which was perfect! We actually found ourselves wishing we were staying longer, as the apartment was really comfortable.

 

Staying in an apartment near the airport in Guayaquil

We arrived in the airport an hour and a half before our flight on the advice of our host, which was calling it a little too close for our comfort, especially since there was a huge line to pay a USD $20pp government tax before they would let us board a flight to the Galápagos (curious why the government couldn’t just add this fee to the ticket?) and get our luggage scanned for bio-security. While Igor waited in line, Lindsay ran to the airport ATM and took out as much cash as possible – many of the islands are either cash-only or charge ridiculous 20% fees for credit card transactions, so we needed a lot on hand. Unfortunately, her card stopped working after one withdrawal, so we frantically called the bank – it seems our travel notice for Ecuador was missing (good to know their fraud department would shut down the card pretty quickly). We added the new notice and were soon on our way.

Surprisingly, our flight to San Cristóbal was almost half empty. Technically we were visiting the Galápagos during their “off season” – January through June is the warm but “wet” season (ironically, it’s also the “sunny” season, as there is lots of sunshine in between rainstorms), which means we would not see any whale sharks or orcas (they only come to the Galápagos during the cold season, from June – November). But on the plus side, the water would be warm enough to dive with a wet suit (you have to get separate certification to dive with a dry suit, as the air in the suit could potentially rush to your feet and flip you upside down in the water!).

When we arrived in San Cristóbal, a light rainstorm was just passing through. By the time we got clearance from the bio-security guards to take our bags, it was getting sunny. We grabbed a USD $2 taxi to our hostel – Casa de Jeimy – dropped off our stuff and started to explore the town. Igor had scheduled 3 full days on San Cristóbal before our liveaboard dive trip, so we wanted to do some practice dives and see what kind of tours were available.

 

Dogs sniffing luggage at the San Cristobal Airport – looking for fruits and veggies (surprisingly he didn’t alert at our bags, which had doggie biscuits in it!)

As we were walking into town, however, we were immediately distracted from our tour-seeking mission by DOZENS of sea lions we found blanketing the beach in the middle of town. Close to a hundred of these smelly, sluggish but adorable animals were napping on the sand, constantly wiggling around trying to find a comfortable spot while sandwiched between two of their fellow lobos (the Spanish name for them). And the noise was cacophonous: sure, you had the typical eru-eru-eru barking (like a seal in a circus), but that was typically the big dominant bulls. The rest of the juveniles and especially the hungry babies would call out a loud, grating ERAUGHHHH bay of complaint. It sounded like the special effects room of The Walking Dead or something. We spent a good hour standing at the fence around the beach, watching the animal mayhem. When we finally turned to walk away, we were even more amused to find that several sea lions had hobbled around the barrier and hoisted themselves onto the park benches around town as well! So cute.

 

Lobos Marinos (the Spanish call them “sea wolf” instead of sea lion) are EVERYWHERE.

 

Seriously – you can’t sit on the park benches because the hobos…I mean lobos…are napping on them!

After a while, we finally returned to the task at hand and started visiting dive shops. Our hostess had recommended one in particular – Las Mantas – and said we could expect a small discount if we said we were her guests. We started chatting with Jennifer, a Quebecois ex-pat who was one of the dive masters, and told her we were planning to do a liveaboard trip in a few days. “How many dives do you have?” she asked. Even though the website for our boat strongly recommended 100+ dives, we had emailed them before booking asking if we would be OK with only 20 dives. Sure, it’s a pitifully small number, but we did them all this year as well as both our PADI Open Water and SSI Advanced courses, so everything was incredibly fresh in our heads.

“Not *that* many,” we replied evasively.

“What, like, 80?” Jennifer asked. We looked at each other.

“More like 20.” Jennifer balked. We reassured her that the dive boat was aware of our (lack of) experience and said it was fine.

“Yeah, they probably just want to make money.” She then proceeded to freak Lindsay out with frightening descriptions of the strong currents at Wolf Island and Darwin’s Arch (the 2 main sites where our boat would be going), and claimed that people die *every year* from diving accidents. “Have you guys ever done negative entry?” Lindsay looked at her blankly (gotta be honest, I had no idea what that term meant) while Igor shook his head. Jennifer sighed. She then proceeded to sell us a custom, 3-dive itinerary with 2 dive masters to help prepare us for the most advanced dives sites we’ve ever been to. Igor was sure the scare tactics with just part of the sale, but Lindsay was so convinced we were going to drift away and die in open water that he caved and forked over USD $250pp (that’s with our hostel discount!) for our Galápagoes crash-course. “Be here at 6AM sharp tomorrow morning,” Jennifer said after we picked out our rental gear. “And NO alcohol tonight!” BOO.

We headed back to the hostel and stopped at a grocery store along the way for a sober, home-cooked meal of black bean & corn burritos. When we went up to the rooftop kitchen, we were surprised to find we had the place to ourselves! This was by far and away the quietest hostel we’ve ever stayed in. No partying hippies – in fact, most of the other guests seemed to be Latin American tourists. As we ate our dinner, we looked over our view of the town’s small church and enjoyed a salsa serenade that drifted up from a nearby discotech. Starting to love Ecuador!

 

Taking advantage of our hostel kitchen to save a little money on food