The daylight hours change very little when you’re this close to the equator. The difference between the longest and shortest day of the year is about sixteen minutes.

We started the day off with a ghastly 4:15am departure from the hotel. We met Minnie and Gilbert, our co-punters, who are from Philadelphia and Montreal but who live in Seattle now. We were all pretty groggy. It didn’t help our moods that there had been loud Christmas partying going on in the street and in the hotel overnight, including what I hope was fireworks. Anyhow. The plane stopped in Guayaquil – Ecuador’s largest coastal city – to drop off and pick up passengers, and then continued on to the Galapagos islands. It’s a 1hr and 45 minute flight to the islands from the mainland.

There was quite a bit of paperwork to fill out to confirm that no one was bringing in biological threats (ie insects, fruits, or seeds) to the islands and also swearing not to take stuff back illegally. Our bags were x-rayed both in Quito and at the terminal on Isla Baltra. We also learned that drug smuggling with submarines is a thing… load your sub with cocaine on the coast of central or South America, then head out to the Galapagos to refuel, and then make the journey up to the Canadian or American coast to deliver the goods. This information had me and Jeannie googling where one might buy a submarine and how much it would cost. Google has answers! If you’re much braver than us, it seems like a pretty viable racket! Between the Galapagos and the mainland there’s a long channel of marine reserve, to protect migratory species travelling along this marine highway – this is quite challenging to enforce, but is definitely an improvement over having a free-for-all. Apparently, in 2021, the Ecuadorian navy was running a training voyage on a three-masted sailing ship in the marine reserve, and although they were completely unarmed and unprepared for this, they found and apprehended a 3-man submarine laden with drugs!               

But anyways. That’s not really relevant to our travels…

Walking off the plane and into the passport control building, we saw 3 (maybe 4?) land iguanas. They’re only found on this tiny island in the archipelago, not on any of the larger islands. The biggest difference between land iguanas and marine iguanas is that land iguanas don’t swim. And they have cylindrical tails rather than flat tails. We then took a bus to the boat dock, where there were pelicans! And also brown terns sitting on the pelicans heads!

Tortoises are reptiles, and can live for a full year without water or food. Back in the day, folk travelling the high seas would stock up on tortoises not only as a great source of self-preserved/always-fresh meat, but also as a spill-proof stash of water. Kinda icky but kinda handy!

After lunch, we stopped in quickly to walk through a lava tunnel.

Also I cannot stress how fantastic it is to have someone else responsible for all the logistics. Jorgen has arranged all the transportation and guides and equipment and everything, and he talks to all the people who need to be talked to. I feel like quite the spoiled traveler.

Felicity