Dos días en uno

Air conditioning! Seat belts! WiFi that goes faster than a giant tortoise! Posh hotel!

Yes, all this could be yours! Just fly to Quito, Ecuador to enter, and this could be YOU!

As you can tell, I'm excited about our new lodging. Sorry for not blogging yesterday, by the way. I'll catch you up, loyal followers. Don't think I've forgotten you! Yesterday, we went to a new hotel via taxi, one still on the same island of Santa Cruz. We made a stop along the way to hike through an underground tunnel left by lava. The cool air was a relief. Pictured below is the entrance to the tunnels.

After that brief activity, we were off. One taxi ride and one boat ride (complete with poor grammar) later, we were at our hotel.

By the way, I'm 12, and I can translate the Spanish better than that.

                                     

The next part was a kayaking adventure that was breathtaking in more than one way. We went kayaking immediately because our room was not yet ready. We kayaked over to an offshoot of our island, hiked quickly up to a view of an inclosed inlet, and kayaked back again. There was just one problem...

We had to climb in to the dock along the side because of the napping pile of sea lions.

Other wildlife:

Incredible elusive turtle

(This is the best photo.)

More blue-footed boobies (see above)

Giant marine iguana (inlet area)

Blue heron (at hotel pool!)

Shark (inlet area)

Manta rays, swimming right next to us!

So, in summary, that was amazing.

But wait! There's more! We also went to town to see the fish market. The fish cleaners threw scraps to the pelicans. Needless to say, there were a lot of pelicans. Combine that with the Galapagos "unafraid of humans" gene, and you get quite a spectacle.

If you look at the bottom of the man's left leg, you might be able to find the sea lion here.

The sea lion pictured above is a perfect example of the sea lions that we encountered throughout our journey. First off, it wasn't afraid of anyone there. Second, after it had participated in the scrabble, it decided that it was tired and took a nap. In fact, it was napping for the first part of the battle as well.

Now for today's actividades (activities). Well, here's the embarrassing part. There aren't any. All we managed to do was travel and rest. I suppose this isn't really two days in one post!

Thanks for reading. Stick with me, we're almost done. Happy and sad at the same time...

Bonus photos: artsy pics!

Spanish contest standings:

Aidan- 49

Mom- 4

Dad- 27