Farewell Golondrina, Hello Quito

MS - Thursday and Friday Dec 28 & 29. We are now back in Quito with great internet so I can catch up the blog. Yesterday, Thursday, we awoke at a new island, Rabid, where we had motored to overnight in 6 hours. This island has red sand beaches due to the iron in the lava that formed it. It is a total of 5 square km. We took a substantial hike and had great views and discovered some snakes.

We went back to the boat and motored back to Santa Cruz Island on the North West side to Cerro Dragon. Here we took another hike inland to see the areas where the land iguanas nest. We also got to see some more flamingos in the wild. When we returned to the beach, we snorkel for almost two hours. There were 1000s of fish in huge schools in this area. Chip and I saw the largest sea turtles yet. They were gigantic and shockingly fast. Ken discovered some white-tipped reef sharks just a few feet from the beach. When I went to investigate, I discovered that there were eight sharks all together hanging out under and overhang of rock. CRAZY!

All this nature has been amazing. The Galapagos have a rule that you must stay 2m (6 feet) from all wildlife. We did not touch any of the fantastic things that we have witnessed, but we could have! We were that close.

Last night on the boat the crew toasted the guests with a farewell cocktail of sangria. Everyone was smiling and thanking everyone else. Our guide Roberto showed a slideshow for us of pictures that he had taken during the week. There was samba dancing on the upper deck after dinner with lots of smiles. We hit the sack at a reasonable time because we had another 6AM activity.

This morning we took out our two dinghy boats and motored into Black Turtle Cove. There we saw turtles (of course), eagle rays, black-tipped sharks, white-tipped sharks, and baby hammerheads who were hunting! A great farewell activity. We returned to the boat for breakfast and then motored to Baltra Island for the airport.

We were at the airport by 8:30 am and were able to catch an earlier, and direct, flight into Quito. We checked into the same hotel we had stayed in previously. Another romantic room for three, this time with 3 twin beds. "Good night Ricky. Goodnight Lucy". We walked one block away to Freedom Bike Rentals http://freedombikerental.com/ and were able to secure my rental and pick up the guys bikes that had been stored and had their oil changed. We are all geared up and ready to go tomorrow morning. Heading to the middle of the world to see/experience the equator and then check out some volcanoes. The city is very alive tonight. Lots of fireworks can be heard and a string of bonfires are being set in the medians of the roads where people are bringing out papers and dolls and signs and throwing them into the fires to be burned. Perhaps some sort of New Year's Resolution?