Our time has ended on Isabela and we were off to return to Santa Cruz. After our boat ride, we were greeted with an extra special treat. A newborn (probably only hours old) sea lion pup was near the shore with his momma. She was encouraging him to come into the water and he wanted nothing to do with it, eventually he caved and crawled over the rocks and was in the water. As soon as he was in, he was out again not liking the water at all. Ha! It was about the cutest thing we saw, such a special moment.
We had mostly a free day so as a group we had decided to visit the local gorge, Las Grietas, for swimming. On our way we pasted these beautiful pink ponds and were natural tide pools where due to the sun, dries out and becomes where the locals (you need a permit) farm for sea salt. Salt ponds! It’s like a dream, I do love my salt. During our meals the group would always tease me as I would request salt, although they were all too happy to use it as well. Even that day during lunch someone asked me if I had requested salt to pass it over. I didn’t ask for salt that day and now I see I was their scapegoat all along, they wanted someone else to ask for it. Ha! These salt ponds, I wanted to run out there and dip into them but I settled on sampling the salt instead. Lovely coarse grains, tasted magnificent.
So around the bend, up some rocks and down the trail we arrived at Las Grietas. This wonderfully cool water that is a nice mix of fresh and sea water that was so clear. We all jumped in and swam to the end, crawled up and over some very mossy rocks, continued swimming until we get to the end away from all of the crowds. While we were all floating and enjoying the water, Tay started to do a little rock climbing. Of course that is where we are all saying be careful. She was in the midst of saying I do this all the time but my parents would kill me if I got into another accident when the rock she was holding onto gave way. She pushed away from the rock and a huge splash of rock and Tay hit the water. Thankfully she was okay and not a scratch. I couldn’t imagine what we would have done if she was injured and we had to get her back to the entrance of the gorge. Well that was a little dampener and we had our time in the gorge so we were back to the beginning in no time. And then were off to go to the beach for a little bit of time.
I decided to head out early and do a little wandering In town to see if there was any shopping I wanted to do and ended up back to our place for the night just as the others were arriving. I jumped into the shower and found that if the people in the room below us was also trying to use the water you do not get any water to trickle out of the showerhead and what water you do get is frigid cold. Just what you want after camping and swimming for days on end.
It was our last night together as a group as some were heading off to other locations at the airport versus back to Quito, so we enjoyed a nice dinner together. We went to La Calle de los Kioscos one of the main streets that on Fri day nights where they block traffic and all of the restaurant kiosks take over the street with tables and becomes a large party. We enjoyed a nice dinner and drinks. I was sitting in the middle of the table with a lot of conversations going on around me but I wasn’t in any specific one of them and with all of the limited sleep over the past week my eyes and head started to feel heavy and I was doing a little head bob right at the table. Some of the younger people of the group were talking about going out but the rest of us said no we will go back and get to bed, an early morning was ahead of us. Once you get older you want to get some sleep, you’ll see we said. Ha!
An early morning indeed, but soon we were off to the airport and saying our goodbye to the Galapagos, to Alex, and to a few members of our group who had different flights than us. It was a bit of a shock to land back in Quito since it was so much cooler.
Now Cecilia and I had flights out back to the states around midnight so while we had a room for the night it was mostly to rest and repack. Most of us decided we wanted to have dinner in Quito and maybe see the historic old town but by the time it came to leave we opted to go to go to a different place for dinner and maybe hit up some sights afterwards.
We ended up having dinner at Maskay, which was kind of a new age fusion place. We were having dinner early so the place was quite open when we got there. We finally had a menu where we could order off of and not just chicken/fish and rice. We ate so much food. We were cleaning our plates that night. Everyone opted for dessert but instead of just 1 or 2 to share we all ended up ordering our own and they were all fantastic! There was only one thing left when we were done, they had carrot cake with bell pepper ice cream. The cake was good and the ice cream was interesting but no one was calling for seconds with the ice cream.
We realized while walking to dinner that some of the hotspots we wanted to see were quite a bit further away and after dinner it was already getting a bit dark so we just went back to our space to finalize our stuff before it was time to go.
So ended our time in Ecuador and the Galapagos. We didn’t get to spend much if any time in Quito but we were budgeting our time away from the office so if in the area again I would like to do some exploring. The Galapagos has been crossed off the list. Filled with all of the giant tortoises, marine iguanas, penguins, amazing moments with sea lions, sea turtles, rays, sharks and we mustn’t forget all of the boobies!!!
We have made some good friends and had a great time. A trip for the books. Definitely recommend heading to the Galapagos some time in your life. Be kind to the environment and treat it well. Our ecosystem needs us. Remember a butterfly effect, a small action seemingly insignificant has major impact at the world at large.
One of our national parks, Yellowstone, was dying and no one knew why. Due to extermination and loss of habitat the wolf population reached to endangered levels. The Wolf Project in the park is where they reintroduced wolves to the park and surprisingly enough the park started to come back alive, the animals started to thrive, vegetation grew back thick and lush. We all play a part to the fragile ecosystem and a small change to that can have a devastating effect. Remember the circle of life. We need to take care of our planet, keep the animals wild and protected. We saw that a lot in the Galapagos and it’s a good lesson to learn, but even the Galapagos with its protected status isn’t keeping it safe, the changes to our climate is impacting some of the islands and the animals in it. The rising temps are impacting them. Remember earlier posts, the Tortoises sex is determined while incubating, cooler and warmer temps impacting whether it is male/female. The iguanas due to being cold blooded may not be able to survive and the boobies with the rising of the sea levels due to melting of the ice caps may need to abandon their nesting areas and adjust their annual migrations.
I will get off of the soap box of taking care of our planet but it is important to me and you can’t help but think about it when you are in places like the Galapagos.