We woke up in the Puerto Ayora harbor. This is the largest town in The Galápagos archipelago. The crew, but the barman Jimmy, slept in town that night. After breakfast, we boarded the dingy to meet Marcos at the dock.
Our bus took us to Los Gemelos. These are a pair of spectacular craters that were completely obfuscated by the fog. On our way back, we stopped by Rancho Manzanillo to visit out first giant tortoises. The tortoises are not owned by anyone and roam between the different farms. This farm gave up on typical agriculture. In the past, farmers fight tourists plodding through their crops looking for tortoises. Now, you pay them a few bucks and they let you go find the tortoises that wandered on their property.
Afterward, we headed back to the boat for lunch and a nap. This was unnecessary. Many of us would have preferred to stay in town to shop, have a drink, and take advantage of the wifi. The family from Georgia left Nemo III to do their own thing and two new groups arrived. There was a couple from Canada and a Chinese family who are now based in Brazil. The family brought a 15 months baby named Iris with them who was an instant celebrity. Everyone loved her.
In the afternoon, we went to Darwin Research Center. We spent too much time there. We saw the body of Lonesome George (half mast is too high) and some super horny tortoise named Diego. His offspring number almost 3000! Afterward, we went into town for mojitos, wifi, and Zofran. The order in which we hunted for these was probably not the greatest. Three mojitos for $12 did not make the search for Zofran very easy.
After dinner, we started a twelve-hour ride to the western side of Isla Isabela. We said goodbye to civilization and hit the seas.
Next: Isla Isabela
Rarely Pure & Never Simple 