AUG 26th - first day of the Galapagos tour.

We woke up really early thins morning so we could make it to the airport in Guayaquil. The alarm went off at 630 am and i was first to shower. Abbi mumbles something to me on my way into the bathroom about sparks in the shower. I assumed she was still half asleep and talking gibberish.

I took off my pj's pulled the curtain and stood out side the shower stall before i turned on the tap, and thank god i did. I pulled the switch on the shower head over to get the hot water. As soon as i got the switch over to the left, a huge electrical current ran through the electrical tape covered wires on the shower head and a few large sparks flew directly at my face! Talk about a wake up call, following the sparks came a huge cloud of smoke and by this time i had screamed loud enough to wake up every one in the apartment. I could hear abbi chuckling in the room through the walls. I turned the switch back to the right side and assumed at this point that I’d be having another cold shower.

Before i got back in the shower i went back into our room where abbi proceeded to tell me that she had done the same thing the night before while i was sleeping. Note to self; from now on i will listen to abbi mumbling to me in the morning.

After that, breakfast was pretty uneventful. Breakfast of toast and marmalade and instant coffee. It seems that i better get used to it, its hard to come by a real cup of coffee around these parts.

Once we had finished breakfast we packed our bags and our host mom drove us to the airport. Everything went off without a hitch there. We got our tourist cards for the islands, our boarding passes and off we went to catch the plane.

Turns out the flight was only an hour and a half and not the 3 hours we had anticipated. That was a pleasant surprise as we landed on Baltra island in no time.

After we paid our 100 US entrance fee, we were met by our tour guide Christian and waited for the 14 others that were to join us on the boat.
We took a bus to a ferry that dropped us off right at our boat for the week, Floreana. We saw a few crabs, pelicans and frigate birds on the way and even 2 small manta rays swimming along the shore.

Our boat is big, 75 feet, a bit out of date and smells of mildew but abbi and i have our own room with 2 bunk beds and a private bathroom. The style is very similar to mom and dad's boat, just a bit more tired. We had lunch right away, pasta and cucumber salad. Then we had our loooong safety demonstration.

By 2;00 we were on a dingy (or panga) out first island; Santa Cruz. It has the biggest population of all the islands of 20 000. We hopped in a mini van once we got to shore and drove to a national park to find the giant tortoises. We saw about 10! they are massive and prehistoric looking, some of them make loud hissing sounds if you get too close. We learned about the mating process and the protection of the large reptiles  by the locals. It was very foggy and a bit raining which normal for our altitude of about 500 feet above sea level. We all had to wear the rubber boots provided for us as it was very wet and muddy.

We looked for the tortoises for about 2 hours and also walked through a giant cave made by flowing lava from a volcano eruption. We also saw a very large crater that formed after the volcano erupted. It looked like a giant cenote in mexico, about 250 meters across and 100 meters deep.

It was then time to go back to the boat for dinner. We all met in the dining cabin and ate together. We had mashed potato, veggies and chicken, we all must have been starving as it got very quite once the food was served.

After dinner we all introduced ourselves and met the crew members. They are 6 all together and they all have different jobs on board. It was so cute, they all put on crisp white uniforms for the introductions. They we had a few hours of chill out time, we chatted, took some pictures of the pelican that hangs out on out boat and got a bit familiar with everyone on board.

now abbi and i are in our room getting ready for bed. I am on the top bunk and abbi has the bottom. The boat will be cruising for the next six hour to our next island while we are sleeping.

By 6am tomorrow we will be at our next stop; Genovesa. Its the most northern of the islands and we have 2 snorkel trips planed. Its gonna be a great.