Day 13 - Galapagos Ecuador
We took a two hour plane ride from the mainland of Ecuador to Blatra. The airport on this island is the gateway to the Galápagos Islands. It is the world’s first ecological airport, designed with bioclimatic architecture and a focus on sustainability. The airport is the only structure on the island. There are no other buildings or people living on the island.
Just landed in the Galapagos!
They take outside contaminations very seriously here. The plane and all our luggage tas sprayed with disinfectant. We also had to walk over a disinfection mat to clean our shoes.
First. Ecological airport in the world.
We took a ferry to Santa Cruz Island where a bus was waiting to drive us to our Hotel, The Royal Palm Hotel. The Royal Palm is a Hilton property and has very nice accomdations. It is also located in the highlands of Santa Cruz Island. The sea level climate was warm and dry. The highlands are showed in clouds with a light mist constantly pouring down. So many microclimates in this area!
Our guide made a short stop on the way to the hotel for us to see a large sinkhole, Ti had so many ferns growing everywhere.
Once we got settled into our rooms in the hotel, we had another excursion to tour a Lava Tube. It was about 1/2 mile long and you had to be careful not to hit your head or trip on rocks on boulders on the ground. The tour camp at provided hard hats and flashlights.
Entrance to the Lava Tube.
Looking back towards the entrance of the Lava Tube.
The entrance was very stunning with the Lava Cafe restaurant located right inside the entrance. It took us about 45 minutes to complete the hike. There was a small ladder that we took to exit the tube.
The exit for the lava tube.
Sandy exiting the Lava tube.
Next we went to Playa El Garrapatero park where we hiked down to the beach. We saw many birds along the way. We also saw 20 foot tall prickly pear cactus and candle opera cactus. These cactus evolved to grow tall so the iguanas and turtles do not eat them and kill them.
Once we reached the beach we found a “mess” of aquatic iguanas. These are only ocean going lizards in the world. They have faces that look like Godzilla!
A “Mess” of aquatic iguanas
A close up on the iguanas.
We returned to the hotel had a nice dinner and retired early since we were up at 5:30am to get here.
