Andrew and I are currently on the island of Santa Cruz, having taken a three hour motorboat ride, on open water of course, here from Isla San Cristobal yesterday. We woke up at a goodly time this morning, went to buy our tickets back to San Cristobal (where we fly out tomorrow), and then went looking for bicycles to rent, as the guidebook we're using said that biking was a good way to get to all the things we wanted to see here. Unfortunately, we couldn´t find bikes for rent. There was one lady that was willing to rent us bikes with flat tires for a dollar each hour we used them (for what?), but we surprisingly decided against that great offer. Instead, we set off on foot from the coastal town of Puerta Ayora to Bella Vista, where we were under the impression that we could find a guide that would take us around to the various scenic delights here on the island; we did not take the guide book.
The walk to Bella Vista was in between three to four miles, though all uphill, and along the way we took our time exploring the lava tunnels, which were just off the road, that the island is known for. We had a good time spelunking and taking macho pictures. We got back on the road, got to Bella Vista (though we saw no good view, which is what the name implies in Spanish), and were disturbed to find that we could not find any guides. Well, that´s not quite true. A fat Equadorian wearing a wife-beater t-shirt led us to believe he could get us a guide to take us up to the national park to see the sights for $25. While that might seem like peanuts, we´ve grown accustomed to not paying more than a few dollars for anything, thus it would not do. We took a peak at our free map, ascertained that the next town, Santa Rosa, which wasn´t far at all from a number of areas of interest, was about six or seven miles away. Off we trudged, again all uphill.
Suffice it to say that we were smoked by the time that we got to Santa Rosa and after buying and drinking a few bottles of water there, we made up our minds to finish off what we´d started and walk to Los Gemelos. I was whupped at that point, but Andrew resolutely led the way keeping me at his fast pace for shame of falling back. At any rate, after a few more miles of uphill, we saw tourists sitting along the side of the road, asked them, and were pleased to discover that we had reached Los Gemelos. What we weren´t particularly pleased about was that we´d forgotten what the guidebook had told us that Los Gemelos were where the earth had caved in on vacant lava chambers. Thus, we walked thirteen miles uphill to see to two blinkity-blankity big holes in the ground. We did our best to extend our time up there, to peruse the holes from several angles, but we were both tired, sweaty, sunburned, and annoyed at that point. We started the easy part of the trip, the thirteen miles downhill.
Fortunately, we went no more than a few hundred yards when a trio of Galapagosian teens offered to give us a ride back to Puerta Ayora for $3. We´d read not to hitch-hike, but we figured that two guys weren´t going to rob us with a girl in the car. Luckily, we guessed right. It was more than a bit annoying to watch the four hours that we walked fly by in less than fifteen minutes, but we were very happy to be back. We´re taking a siesta for our day´s efforts.
Other various observations/anecdotes from the trip, as a whole, so far:
1. The internet is ubiquitous. There are shops in every town we've been to, even way out here, six hundred miles into the Pacific Ocean.
2. We´ve been pleasantly welcomed into the Gringo traveling community, having spent our first days here in the Galapagos talking and hanging out with Brid (pronounced Breed), an female Irish electrical engineer; Kevin, a Scot traveling with his Tasmanian girlfriend Kate, and...well, I forget the other guy´s name, but he´s an American working with the Peace Corps here in the Galapagos. Brid gave us the rundown of what we can expect for the rest of our trip, in particular the Inca Trail, Machu Pichu, and Cuzco.
3. Guayaquil was interesting. It´s the largest city in Equador and most of it is simply barrio (ghetto). We stayed in a hotel that cost us $8.70 for the night, though we did get a cold water shower (Dear Lord, that was cold!) included in that price. There´s a renovated riverwalk there which we walked up and down stopping at the various eateries and drinking beer. Some poor Equadorian dropped her ring into the river, so I leaned over the ledge and tried to fish it out, but to no avail. Unfortunately, my attempt at chivalry went unrewarded as the cute mamacita was with her boyfriend (who sure as heck wasn´t going to get his sleeve wet fishing for some cheap ring). The highlight of our day in the city was definitely when we decided (a few beers in) to have a beer on the pirate ship that was moored to the river walk. We had to pay a $4 cover, but we thought it was so tacky that we had to do it. We got led by a flourescent uniformed Pirate to our seats near the bar (on the deck above the captain´s quarters) and were thrilled when we discovered that our $4 wasn´t a cover charge, but, in fact, paid for the one hour trip we ended up taking. If you´re ever in Guayaquil with an hour and four dollars to spend, there are worse ways to do so.4. Even though you have to pay exhorbitant plane fares to get to the Galapagos, the Galapagosian government charges you a $100 (apiece) tourism tax. Alright, other than all of that, that´s pretty much it. Tomorrow, we have a three hour motorboat ride back to San Cristobal, an hour and a half flight to Guayaquil, and then a two hour flight to Lima. Yay!
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