Day 13: Santa Cruz, Galapagos Islands, Ecuador: May 10
Cell service in the Galapagos Islands is very poor, so we are playing catch-up with posts. On Friday, we left Quito at the crack of dawn and flew into beautiful Santa Cruz where we explored a Giant Galapagos Tortoise preserve, and then checked out the town of Puerto Ayora.In the aircraft we saw many volcanos outside of Quito, Ecuador.Shortly after landing we wen to the farm and saw Giant Galapagos Tortoises. Some of them live to be over 100 yearsold! They love to bath in the mud. We saw a female Giant Galapagos Tortoises that are much smaller than the males. Dome-shelled males can weight up to 770 pounds! There are Marine Iguanas were everywhere. There were flowers everywhere and the temps are in the mid 70’s. It was delightful! Taxis were all lined up in the bay to take tourists to small ships, excursions, etc. They have a very orderly process for who’s turn it is to take a fare. We found a baby sea lion nursing from her mother who appropriated one of the benches on the public pier.