Day 22 - Guayaquil to Galapagos

Today we got up at 05.00 ready for a very early breakfast and a 6.15 pick up.  Diego took us to the airport having still not got rid of his bananas to his sister, so it was a bit of a squash again.  He started processing us through the agricultural checks and onto our flight, but we hadn't got our transit visas so had to wait for his colleague to arrive.  Luckily he turned up in the nick of time to get us through.  He gave us a pile of papers, then we were on our own.  We went through all the checks and used our Priority passes again to get into the VIP lounge.  All should have been well, but eventually we realised it wasn't.  After announcements to ask agent and chats to various people, we discovered that the plane was delayed by 2 hours.

Eventually, we made it to the Galapagos at Baltra airport, where we had to wait for a sniffer dog to check everyone’s luggage, before we could collect it.  Eventually, we met our guide, saw our luggage onto a truck, got on a bus, then a ferry and then a private bus when our trip really began.

Our first stop was high up at the top of the island in the cloud forest, where it was drizzling.  We looked at 2 huge craters which had formed not by volcanic eruption but because the roofs of chambers had collapsed.  Then we went on to a ranch where we saw lots of giant tortoises, before having lunch.

Late in the afternoon, we embarked on our boat the Seaman II, which is a catamaran.  We have a double cabin on the upper deck, which is quite spacious.  The evenings on board will take the same pattern – dinner, then a briefing about tomorrow’s activities.

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