Wow! So far so good.
We stayed Friday night at this great little hotel/hostel in Puerto Ayora. They have free WIFI and our room has air conditioning.
After settling in the room we headed out in our first adventure: lunch and then a long stroll to Tortuga Bay.
Lunch was in this street fair-like area called Los Kioskos (the kiosks). It's a street full of eateries where you can get cheap fresh local food. Most all of them have $5 lunch (almuerzo). Dave had tuna in coconut sauce (cooking in coconut is called encocado) and I had grilled chicken. $5 each...great deal!
Next we took a 45 min stroll to Playa Brava. (Playa is the Spanish word for beach). It was pretty hot so we took our time. You walk on a stone path through forests of Opuntia cactus and various deserty trees. The islands here are mostly a dry climate (not tropical). At the end of the walk is beautiful Playa Brava. Too rough to swim there but if you walk a little farther to Playa Mansa there were places to take a dip. Here we saw lots of mangroves and Marine Iguanas. These iguanas only live in the Galápagos and have evolved to swim down and eat plants on the rocks underwater. We feel lucky to meet these little creatures. They pretty much ignore us even when we approached for photos.
After a bit of swimming, re-applying sunscreen, and laying in the shade of the mangroves, we headed back. What a lovely adventure!
Dinner was at Los Kioskos again but this time it was full of tables right in the street and full of locals. The shops all had their catch of the day set out for you to view and folks tried to entice us into their place as we walked by. After many "No Gracias" we selected a spot that had big shrimps and huge slice of tuna for Dave. You can choose how they cook it too. I had my shrimp encocado (in coconut) and Dave's tuna was grilled.
Things to appreciate:
- English (although I do like to try out my Spanish; I'm sure people get exhausted trying to understand me)
- Hammocks
Tomorrow we will take a 2.5 hours ferry ride to Isabela Island where more adventures await. I'll update the blog once we can find more free wifi.
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