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Our homework for the night before the tour was to watch the film 'Galapagos Affair', which tells the story of the mysterious disappearances on the island of Floreana in the 1930s. Unfortunately, our wifi signal was not strong enough to download, and the showing at the party hostel never went ahead because we all crashed and missed it. So Claudia (the batty he/she - definitely a she we now realise, strong smoker/drinker voice) told us about the dentist and his wife - they shared a single set of steel false teeth, and the Wittmer family and the Baroness.
Claudia took us to the highlands to visit the 'Asilo de la Paz', where giant tortoises roam freely in the corral, and where the only source of freshwater in the island (the Baroness took her baths here), and the pirate coves. We aslo tried a local plum, a small orange ball of fruit that Jake picked from the trees of, apparently, the German family (the Wittmers I believe), so in case we go missing next, we know why...
After stopping for lunch at a local 'restaurant' (she serves clamm hamburgers and clamm pizzas, that's all, and you need to order hours in advance) where we had tuna and mayo sandwiches - I had mayo only - we walked down to the Playa Negra, a black sand beach for a snorkel, and then continued around to the Sea Lion Reserve, to do some more snorkelling. here we saw more sea turtles and fish, and even baby sea lions. Jeremy swam with them before the adults left to go fishing, and when I arrived, there was a tiny pup (about half the size of Zac) flopping about the beach. It followed us around while we awwed and took photos of him, and it was not afraid of the humans in any way. We left when we realised that no one had seen the 'macho' (the male bull) in a while, and he would be quite angry to see us with his pup.
At 3.30pm (a tad earlier than the promised 5pm), we ventured back to Post Office Bay where we saw the infamous Post Office Barrel placed by whalers in the 1700s. Tourists these days leave a postcard and collect another one to hand deliver, similar to the method used by sailors centuries ago.
Despite having to pay for the water taxis and the busses used when we were told everything was included, and despite Jeremy's snorkel snapping ($18 in damage is better than $75 I guess...), we enjoyed our Floreana trip. Considering the distance it is from Santa Cruz, we would've payed far more than $100 each to do a similar tour.
We finished the (very very long) day at a local restaurant in the main strip. Vegetarian pizzas here are served with sweet corn kernals we found out, and their interpretation of a caesar salad dressing was a tad off, but the couple of large beers we had hit the spot, and quite soon we were, once again passing out as soon as we reached the hostel. A good thing too since our boat leaves at 6am the next day ...
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