Full of Love

Tortuga Bay

Hermanas :)

Sea lion. We saw many of these throughout our trip. 

We got back from the Galapagos this afternoon. It was a blast. Definitely one of the best Christmases I've had. I'm actually quite sad that the trip is over. I'll give you a run through of the trip - including pictures, even if Christina has already given all of the excitement away with her millions of blog posts (she is actually sitting next to me, writing another blog post as we speak). Let's see who can finish their blog post first. 

Day 1 (Wednesday):

We left our house at about 4:30 in the morning, arriving at the airport at 5. Our airplane left at around 9:30. The flight from Quito to Guayaquil was about 30 minutes, we stopped there for a little while, and then we continued on for about an hour and a half more to Galapagos. As soon as we landed, we walked right out of the plane. The airport was pretty much outside. We saw an iguana just walking slowly near us, which was cool. It took us a while to get through the airport, but there was a tour guide waiting for us and we got to our hotel by taking a bus for about 5 minutes, a ferry for another 5 minutes, and then a van for 40 minutes. We were able to leave our luggage at our hotel rooms, and then we were off right away to eat lunch at a restaurant. Soon after that, we left with our tour guide to hike to Las Grietas. It was pretty much a crevice with deep water in between it. The water was actually really deep. We snorkeled there for a little while and saw pretty big fish. The tour guide, Fabricio, helped Christina and I climb up tall rocks to jump off of. It was amazing. We got back to the hotel around dinner time, went out to dinner, and went to bed. We were pretty exhausted.

This is one of the few pictures I have of the trip. I didn't take too many because I was, well, lazy. And everybody else was taking so many pictures, I wasn't too worried. This kind of iguana (a sea iguana) was seen all over Galapagos.

Day 2 (Thursday): 

Thursday was a long day. We had to wake up at 6:30 in order to be ready for our van that was leaving at 7. We left on a boat to go to one of the many islands. We went to Floriana on Thursday with our tour guide, Dennis, and two other families. It was about a one hour and a half boat ride. At first it was not very enjoyable for some, seeing that my dad, mom, and Jonathan all got sea sick. Once they moved to the front of the boat where there was a lot more air they felt much better though. At the island, we learned about the history of the pirates that lived there, saw huge turtles, and saw caves that the pirates made. It was pretty cool. Later, we ate lunch at a restaurant there and then got back on the boat and went to a place to snorkel. The place we snorkeled at wasn't too enjoyable because the water was absolutely freezing. We didn't get back to the hotel until about 6 once again. We went out to dinner and went to bed. These were tiring days, I assure you. 

Day 3 (Friday): 

This was yet again another long day. And an early one. We had to wake up at 4:30. It was painful. Our bus left at 5. We went with a tour guide named... Rolando I think. He wasn't a very good one. He didn't really tell us anything. Anyway, the boat ride was long. 3 hours. But, it was a nice boat, and nobody got sick this time since we got to sit on the top of it where all of the fresh air was. We also ate breakfast on the boat. We were accompanied by a french family, a girl from switzerland, a girl from Canada, and a guy from Guayaquil. We went to an island named Bartolome (translated to Bartholomew). It was a tiny island. We had to walk to the top. It was kind of like a really really really easy incline. With lots of extra oxygen that we're not used to. The view from the top was fantastic. After coming down, we went to a beach place to snorkel. This place was so cool. I went pretty far our with my dad and we saw a huge sting ray on the ocean floor and a shark swam pretty close to me. It was one of the coolest things I've done. Ever. Afterwards, it was pretty much the same routine as the day before. We went back on the boat, got to the hotel, ate dinner, and went to bed. Exciting, huh? We're pretty much party animals. 

Day 4 (Saturday - Christmas Day):

This day was a bit more relaxing. We didn't have to wake up until 7:30. It was wonderful. We didn't go on any boats on Saturday. We had the same tour guide we had on the first day - Fabricio. He was my favorite tour guide we had. He explained stuff and he was also very friendly. We went on a hike to Tortuga Bay - a beach there. The sand and the water was so beautiful. They were white as snow (kind of ironic how we went there on Christmas day). Although the water wasn't very swimmable, we still enjoyed our time there. When we got back to our hotel, we ate lunch, and then got to relax for a couple of hours (the first time since getting to the Galapagos). Fabricio then came back to pick us up at about 3:00 to go to the Charles Darwin Center. It was very interesting. And to my surprise, they didn't really talk about evolution. It was a good Christmas day. 

Like I said before, Galapagos was one of the best trips I've had. It was most definitely a success.
Oh, and Christina won the blog posting contest. She finished long ago. 

This was the color of the water. It was so clear and beautiful.