After our issues with accidentally paying for three lots of flights (which we are still trying to overcome!) our trip and arrival to the Galapagos Islands was relatively straight froward. Elena´s Spanish teacher had phoned in advance from Manta to book the same apartment that Elena and Norm had stayed in a few weeks earlier and so we had written instructions from Elena about finding the place.

On arrival at the airport (which is essentially a large shed) on Baltra Island buses transport people 10 minutes across to the island to a tiny ferry crossing across to Santa Cruz, one of the larger and inhabited islands. The very crowded ferry proved to be our first successful animal spotting occasion when we passed a sea lion lazing on a boi. A 45min bus ride followed during which Will was sat on the step at the back by my feet and thus missed some of the views! After a very bad Spanish phone call to Betty Ponce (our landlady) I think I let her know we had arrived and therefore expected to see someone at the side of the road when we asked the bus driving to stop after spotting the petrol station Elena had told us about. Unfortunately we walked down the wrong road so are still not sure if anyone waited for us! Eventually we found it, got settled, were offered a maracuya (local fruit) juice and proceeded to have a very limited half Spanish, half English conversation with Betty. What I got from it is that she thinks that English people speak better English than anyone else!!?

We went straight into the town, Puerto Ayora, to explore by the seafront. Within a few minutes we had watched huge red crabs fight on the rocks, spotted an octopus in the shallow water, seen several little iguanas just chilling on the pavement and nearly walked into a Pelican sitting in the Mangroves! I think I was more scared of it that it was of me!

The next day was taken up partly with going to all the different dive shops and tour shops to arrange what trips we wanted to do during our stay. After lots of differing information we finally chose to visit Floreana Island the next day and booked diving for the day after. We did learn though that only four of about twenty dive shops were actually licensed to dive in the marine park and others simply left so early in the morning that they didn't get checked- we opted for the later leaving licensed one! We then walked about 20 min through the blazing sunshine to the Charles Darwin Research Station, home to lots of iguanas and giant tortoises, as well as a tortoise breeding programme consisting of hundreds of baby tortoises of different sizes and different breeds, all of which would be returned to their right island once they were big enough. Also at the centre is Lonesome George (we´re not sure if we actually saw him or not! They all looked the same!) who is the last remaining tortoise of his particular species. They searched his island when he was found about 30 years ago but never found any others. I think they were all eaten by pirates who kept them on their boats for food as tortoises can survive without food and water for up to 6months. So when he dies the species will be extinct. They have given him two girlfriends of a different species though for company!

Our day trip to Floreana island had been recommended for spotting the most animals and we weren't disappointed. On our arrival at the harbour we saw sea lions sleeping on the steps and huge iguanas lying on the rocks in the sun. First we went to the highlands of extinct volcanoes and visited a tortoise sanctuary, even seeing a couple mating! We visited some pirate caves where the original settlers of the island lived near the only fresh water source and saw some amazing views. Today only about 180 people live on Floreana and the landscape is just covered in think jungle. After lunch at one of the only restaurants we returned to the boat for snorkelling. The snorkelling was terrible and we saw hardly anything, except a few sea lions on the rocks who couldn't be coaxed down to play in the water. We were really apprehensive about our diving trip now! After another 2 hour speedboat journey back to Santa Cruz we got back onto land feeling a bit seasick!

On meeting our dive masters and the crew of the dive boat we were really pleased, as they were so much more friendly than those we had dived with on the mainland! We travelled in taxis back across the island to the ferry port and boarded the tiny boat. After a very long and impressive safety briefing, and even a "check" dive to make sure our equipment was ok we went to the dive site. We were diving off two different islands, Seymour and Mosquera. It was really rough above the dive sites and I immediately felt really sick and was so glad when we backwards rolled off the boat into the water! Both dives really didn't disappoint and we saw plenty of animals: a sealion from a distance, black tip reef sharks, sting rays, a school of about 40 small rays, hundreds of garden eels, moray eels, a turtle and even a hammerhead shark (although that was from the boat and not during the dive!) to name a few!! The people we dived with and all the guides were really lovely and we went back to the shop after to watch the guide´s slideshow of the days photos. Feeling completely exhausted we had a dinner at the kiosk street (small street restaurants serving food to tables across a closed road) and had an early night and a lie in!!

Our final full day we visited some lava tunnels in the morning. Created thousands (or more!) of years ago the tunnels formed when the lava from the now extinct volcano ran so quickly down the hillside that as the outside cooled and hardened the inside continued, leaving perfectly hollowed tunnels. We walked about 1km through the tunnels, dripping wet inside and some bits clearly having recently collapsed, by torchlight. In the afternoon we walked to Bahia Tortuga (turtle bay) about 2.5km along a pathway. The walk was made more interesting by loads of geckos jumping out from just under your feet and hundred of Darwin finches sitting, completely fearless, right next to you! Even when you got to close they just hopped to a branch right next to your head! We reached a beach with huge waves and heeding a warning by the man at the entrance to the national park (that it was "peligroso" or dangerous) continued along the beach to a beautiful lagoon almost cut off from the sea with perfectly still water and surrounded by mangroves. After discovering that snorkelling by the white sand was not good and you couldn't see anything, we hired a kayak to find better spots. I have to admit I may have been a bit lazy at the kayaking part of it!! We found a snorkelling site and saw a shark, ray and plenty of fish; before venturing out closer to the sea and finding huge turtles poking their heads up for air.

The only downfall of our Galapagos trip happened the next morning when, on arrival to the airport we were informed that we had been sold the wrong flight tickets and had to pay $168 each to get on the plane. We discovered that LAN airline had sold the travel agent tickets for Ecuadorian people not foreigners, despite us giving them British passports and checking about three time! So after about an hours argument we realised that we couldn't win this one, although they accepted all the fault for the mistake, and we ended up paying the reduced rate of $50 each. One of the ladies dealing with it was really nice and said that this mistake happened all the time but no one fixed the problem and they always made people pay. So to make it a bit better she upgraded us to seats with twice as much legroom. It didn't make it totally better but we felt quite important!

We arrived to Guayaquil in the afternoon and with the help of the really nice lady at the info desk found a really good and ridiculously cheap hotel, despite Will´s very difficult requests that it must have a TV with cable and whichever sports channel that was playing the F1!

That´s all for now! I´m sat in an internet cafe right near the door, in Baños in the mountains, and my fingers are getting cold!! Will update you again in the next couple of days to where we are now! Lots of love to all xx