We are up at 5:45 to have a quick breakfast to be ready to get picked up at 6:30. There are twelve of us here and we will meet the last couple when we arrive at our ship. They have been on board travelling the North West itinerary and will complete the loop with us. We are meeting in Puerto Aroyo. Our first leg of the trip is only about 35 minutes. It's over two hours flying from Guayaquil to Baltra Island where the airport is. We finally arrived at 11:55 and are met by our guide for the week. His name, believe it or not, is Darwin, his last name is Alvarez. I guess Darwin is a common name in the archipelago.
We leave the airport in a bus, hop on a ferry and arrive on Santa Cruz island. First, we go to a tortoise sanctuary where we have lunch and go hunting for tortoises. We quickly realize that they are everywhere. Darwin is very knowledgeable and we quickly learn all about these amazing creatures.
These are just two of the many giant land tortoises we saw.
After this stopover, we are driven to Puerto Aroyo where we see the fishermen cleaning their catch of the day. It's wild as sea lions, pelicans, frigate birds, and others hang around waiting to get leftovers.
These are the hungry critters waiting patiently.
We are told to buy at least one postcard for an outing tomorrow so we do that. We then walk over to the pier to meet the other travellers and hop on the pandas to get on our ship. We are on the ship and we gather in the dinning area. Darwin tells us our room numbers and we have about one hour before supper at 7pm. We see of the crew members but we don't officially meet them until tomorrow.
The Samba. Our home for 7 days. Cabin was too small to take pictures. We had bunk beds and a bathroom with a shower.
Dinner was very good. Nice variety of veggies also. Good start. Afterwards Darwin briefs us on our day tomorrow. Should be great. The excitement starts at 6 am. Wake up at 5:30.
Yeah a blog post.
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