Puerto Ayora, Santa Cruz, Galápagos [June 18-21].

The early-morning flight from Quito stopped in Guayaquil to pick up more people and then continued, with enough time for me to finish watching a movie I started on the flight from Madrid and beat my head against the seat in front of me over a couple of tough sudoku puzzles. After they sprayed down all of our carry-on luggage to make sure we didn't bring any foreign organisms to the islands, we landed at the tiny open-air airport on Baltras Island and got a shuttle to a nearby port, where we threw our luggage on top of a ferry for the short trip over to Santa Cruz Island. At the port there, we caught a bus to Puerto Ayora, the main city on the islands. There wasn't quite room enough for all of us, so I sat on the little hump in the front next to the driver.

Luggage on the top of the ferry, passengers inside.

Views from the bus to Puerto Ayora.

Our days in Puerto Ayora were spent checking out the town a little [like when the others went to the big weekly market and I tried to meet up with them by asking a bunch of locals how to get there (often getting conflicting directions from two people standing right next to each other) and going all over the place and eventually ending up at the little municipal market], walking and taking water taxis to good swimming and snorkeling spots, and eating delicious food.

Around town: the main Ecuadorean beer supporting a soccer team, I guess.

Sunset near the Charles Darwin Research Station.

Wildlife is everywhere in the Galápagos, even on doors.

And even in the most populated town in the islands, there's plenty of non-door animals. These guys hang out by where the fishermen cut up their fish and wait for handouts.

The pier in town was a hotspot for both residents [with free (but super slow) wifi, a playground, and a concrete "field" that was used by skateboarders, ultimate frisbee players, and more] and animals [pelicans, baby sharks, rays, etc.].

A close-up of the dude [or dudette?] in the corner.

On the way to Las Grietas [The Grottos or The Rifts...something like that], we happened upon the Italian consulate.

View from Las Grietas.

Some Australian guy jumping into Las Grietas.

We had dinner several times at Kioskos, a street that's pretty dead during the day but turns into one long outdoor seating area for several restaurant kiosks at night. There's a lot of grilled meat and fish, and most places serve "encocado" dishes - usually fish or shrimp with a coconut curry sauce. Mmmmm.

We also ate once or twice at "the batido place" - it had great smoothies. There's my shrimp encocado in the corner.

I stopped there one morning for a more local breakfast - plantain dumpling, meat, a fried egg, and fresh juice.

We weren't the only ones enjoying people food. When Mom brought back her dessert from the dinner some of her interns at the research station cooked for us, the resident gecko in our hotel room had to have a taste.

Gecko tongue!

But we weren't in the Galápagos just to see animals adapting to human life. After a few days in town, it was time to head out on a week-long boat tour around some of the other islands.

There was some confusion as our group was heading to the harbor - some people caught a bus, others shared a taxi, and I ended up flagging down a taxi that already had a few people in it so I could split costs with them. All the taxis on Santa Cruz are pick-up trucks, and since the cab of the truck was full, I hopped in the bed [in *the* bed, not just in bed - very important distinction!] with a couple of local workers who were heading to the next town over. It started misting a little bit, but it was pretty cool to sit in the back with the wind whipping and watch the vegetation go by.