Day 13: The Galapaguero and we hit the town (updated)

After so much debate yesterday about today´s hike you would have thought everything would have gone smoothly. But whenever Jesse´s involved, something is bound to happen.

Don´t ask me how but he gets left behind and should have gone into town to the Interpretation Centre. Instead, he has to come with the main group to the Galapaguera de Cerro, the tortoise sanctuary that he visited last week.

Those doing the 4 hour hike have to be packed and ready to go at 8 am and those going by taxi can just chill out for the next 3 hours.

It´s bliss. The camp is so empty so I take the chance to take some photos of the place...

We leave camp at 11:45 and meet up with the rest of the group who are very muddy, hot and tired. So glad I didn´t do the hike though I would have learned a lot from Cesare who was leading it with the National Park guide.

We are taken into the Tortoise sanctuary where we are shown the baby tortoises right up to old tortoises. They look a bit pissed off with us all crowding round taking photos (no flash photography is allowed). Poor Jesse is bored and reads his book on Chinese history while the guide talks.

After that we walk down a very gravelly path to the ocean beach where we can swim for an hour. I decide to go in after all and it´s so exhilarating swimming in the surf with the blue footed boobies diving all around us.

All too soon we have to leave though I´m not dry. I have to dress as I am and when we get to the taxis we´re not allowed inside because we´re so wet. This is the first time I´ve travelled in the back and it´s quite good fun, though not so much when it starts to rain as we head up into the clouds of the highlands.

Arriving in Port (town), I am too late to get a cheap room again in the Hostel San Francisco so end up where I stayed last weekend paying $3 a night more at $13 a night (still pretty good if the room was better, which it isn´t!) The bathroom is in a bad way: the toilet doesn´t flush too well and the mirror and shelf unit are hanging on by one screw.

After organising my day boat-trip to Kicker Rock and Punta Pitt tomorrow, I do some shopping for souvenirs and something to wear this weekend as all my clothes are wet from the beach. It is a struggle to find something suitable but I end up buying a dress!!

By the time I´ve finished shopping, it´s dark and time to quickly shower then meet the other newbies (except we´re not newbies any more) as we´re saying farewell to three of our original group with a celebratory meal. But first we have to walk the gauntlet of the sealions, some of which are bulls and are quite intimidatory especially in the dark.

We arrive safely at the restaurant and I treat myself to Langustino which I assume to be langoustines or Dublin Bay prawns for $12 but when they arrive they look more like lobster (which are not allowed to be on sale this month) but they taste alright...

...and then two hours later I regret having spent $12!! Nuff said??!!

How on earth will I cope tomorrow being on a small boat with 10 other people on a long day trip??

I have to leave you again, dear readers - I´m currently on Isabela Island on day 5 of my cruise and this is the first time we´ve reached some kind of civilisation where the internet cafe computers don´t have USBs so no photos this time.

The tour company changed the itinerary and I wasn´t expecting to be here - a 6 hour sail overnight over very rough seas and I´m not a good sailor - I was very seasick yesterday too and have had to buy more seasick pills here to get me through the next leg tonight, going round the west side of Isabela to Fernandina, the island where there was a volcanic eruption in April!! Should be interesting!

Oh, and my camera´s broken - more of that another time but I fell on it and broke the lense. I am obviously heartbroken and only have batteries for my compact camera to last a short while (didn´t think I´d need the charger as it was only the backup camera). Luckily, I have made friends with an Australian lady who has kindly agreed to let me have copies of her photos from this trip else I´d have virtually nothing to remember it by.