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At 4am we awoke, dressed and jumped in a taxi to the airport en route to our 2nd planned destination of the trip: the Galapagos Islands! After working our way through customs, we boarded the plane and were seated next to an American couple, Liz and Jay, who were also travelling South America day by day. We became fast friends and convinced them to come with us directly to Isla Isabela rather than stay on Santa Cruz, a decision which led to a very interesting string of events indeed! After landing in Baltra, we were required to take a bus, ferry and another bus to Puerto Ayora (the largest city in the Galapagos). Upon arrival, we had a lovely breakfast of fried plaintains and eggs at a Cafeteria on the beach before attempting to arrange a ferry to Isabela which proved rather difficult as all of the boats were fully booked. Fortunately, we found one boat willing to take us, a small cargo vessel unlicensed for taking passengers. While waiting for the cargo to be loaded and boat preparations made, we wandered around Puerto Ayora and observed the wildlife. Never before have I had reason to use the phrase "littered with sea lions," but here it was quite apt, with the beasts lounging on rocks, pavements, boats, and even park benches! Dispersed thoughout and between them were red crabs and metre-long marine iguanas, not mention countless finches, terns and pelicans, the latter two frequently diving for fish.
Finally, a little after 3pm, the boat was ready to depart and so we climbed aboard, stepping on bags of potatoes and crates of avocados into the hold of the ship, so that the coastwatch couldn't see us, and set off. Eventually once out of sight of the shore, we were allowed out and took a precarious, ladderless climb onto the top deck of the boat and into nature's laundromat. Sitting up here in the open we were frequently showered by the waves crashing over the boat and quite quickly became soaked through. Eventually this lost its novelty and we dropped below deck again to spend the rest of the time being thrown about with the rest of the vegetables. 4 hours later we arrived on Isabela and, after fighting for the price (he originally wanted $30 for the four of us, this became $30 each and we bargained down to $20 each). We left our new friends to find a hostel for themselves since ours was apparently "full" - 2 free beds in our room... and head to bed at the end of a really really long day.
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