I Heart the Galapagos!

After a more or less uneventful 6 day passage Bubas pulled into Isla San Cristobal of the Galapagos on the morning of April 22. In the anchorage we saw giant beautiful black birds swooping around, tuna swarming and sea lions and swimmers alike frolicking in crystaline waters. Seriously? We had originally planned to pull in, top up on fuel and food and be underway - in less than 24 hours. It wasn't long after we dropped anchor that a fellow approached in a water taxi, asking if we had an agent (thus continuing the taxing test of Jen's conversational Spanish skills). Once we found out that there wasn't an exorbitant charge (rumoured to be $150/person) for staying longer than a day, we decided to stay 2 :-)

We arranged for a tour of the island following our clearing in procedure, which was quite simple. Our tour consisted of getting taken around the island by a very friendly fellow and getting shown to the key tourist spots - the volcano, a panorama view of the island, the turtle sanctuary and the surf beach with all the iguanas. What we all found amazing was the fact that it was probably close to 100 degrees and super humid down at the boat, but within a few minutes up the volcano, it was probably 75 and quite pleasant. Calling the landscape 'lush' would be an understatement - there's banana, mandarin, guava, etc. trees everywhere. The turtle sanctuary was also quite cool, of course. Some of the turtles are well over 100 years old, and they can weigh 90-110 kilos! We arrived at the surf/iguana beach at sunset. Unfortunately, the iguanas had already gone to bed, so we didn't see any. And even worse, in our quest for them over all the volcanic rocks, Jean stumbled. Opting to protect his camera rather than brace himself for the fall, he crashed head first into a rock. He laid there dazed, bleeding profusely, while Oly and I quickly surmised that he needed stitches, pronto.

Our driver brought us to the hospital, where we were seen immediately. The quite young nurse started mopping up the blood and fished a small rock out of Jean's head. She then numbed him up and put in 5 clean stitches. She ordered an x-ray, wrote out a prescription for 3 types of pills and asked us to come back in 7 days to have the stitches out. I explained we'd be at sea in 7 days, she said 'no problemo.' I asked how much we owed for their services and they chuckled at me. 'No paga nada.' Shocked, I told them that en los Estados Unidos, nosotros pagamos para todos los servicios medicos (we pay for all medical services). She laughed and waved us off.

The little town of San Cristobal is adorable. Most of the streets are cobblestone, the water taxi service drops you off at a little dock that is well lit at night with blue and green neon lights so you can see the sea lions playing, and the buildings are all painted with brilliant colors. The currency is Ecuadorian, but it's tied to the dollar so todo es el mismo (so it's all the same). Provisioning for a passage, however, is extremely expensive...but we knew that and got most of our stuff in Panama.

I am sooooo proud of my Spanish. I've been having legitimate, sometimes long conversations with several people. My grammar is awful I'm sure, but I'm communicating, and often translating for everyone else. Yay me!!

We shove off tomorrow morning. It's 3-4 weeks to the Marquesas, weather dependent of course.