Day 11 - Return to Quito

The trip is starting to feel like it is coming to an end.

I´m glad we started our journey in San Cristobal then went to Isabela before coming to Santa Cruz. In San Cristobal the seal lions make you keenly aware that things are going to different than they are on the mainland. The sea lions lounge where they want and people go about their business without disrupting them. It made me feel like I was enterning a strange paradise where the animals are fearless and docile. In Isabela, the marine iguanas replaced the sea lions in popularity but were equally as bold. Santa Cruz has a lot of pelicans but they are not nearly as friendly and the town is definitely the big city of the islands. There are stop lights, grocery stores and I bet they even have cable television.

We stayed at the Angermeyer Hotel and it was my favorite place we stayed during the whole journey. The hotel is on ¨the other side¨as the locals say and you have to take a water taxi to town. The taxi costs $.60/pp during the day and $1/pp at night and the trip takes just a couple of minutes.

This morning we had to wake up early in order to go to the Charles Darwin Research Station (CDRS) before heading to the airport on Baltra. We raced through the CDRS and didn´t really spend quality time there but we did see Lonesome George (I don´t know if it his name or the fact that he´s over 100 years old but he looked like a very sad, very old tortise) and a land iguana.

The route to the airport was pretty exhausting (a water taxi to a bus to a ferry to a bus to the airport) and then when we finally arrived at the airport we had to wait for our flight for close to three hours. Baltra is an island that used to have a military base on it. Now there are just abandoned buildings and the single runway airport. Our bags were checked one final time to make sure we weren´t transporting seeds or animals (they check your bags everytime you arrive and depart an island). We did not arrive in Quito until 5:30p.

We had dinner with a guide who was supposed to take us on a tour of the city but we were all too tired and opted for a quick driving tour and an early bedtime.

Tomorrow, we all head home. I´m the last to leave. I wanted a day in Quito so I could visit the churches and tour the city but it is sad to see everyone leave.

HIGHLIGHT: Seeing the giant land iguana was pretty cool. The iguana was three, maybe foor feet long and it was different shades of brown and yellow. Its skin was amazing. It looked like it was a child wearing an iguana suit that was a little baggy around the elbows and shoulders.