Galápagos 2013: Vacation, Evolved - Farewell
On Sunday, December 22, we awoke on the Letty for the final time. The boat was already docked in the harbor at our starting point of Puerto Baquerizo Moreno on San Cristóbal Island. Our suitcases went on to the airport ahead of us, and we went into town to see the sights, such as they are.
Unfortunately, the sights in Puerto Baquerizo Moreno are fairly mediocre when compared to the vast natural beauty we'd seen in the past week, or even the ones in the larger town of Puerto Ayora. We went to the local visitor's center for the National Park. That had a good summary of the human history of the Galápagos, as well as a neat relief map of the islands and a solitary Galápagos Tortoise named Pepe, but on the whole wasn't very compelling.
From there we walked along the waterfront. There were plenty of sea lions hanging out on the waterfront, including a few that had taken over a bus stop and one who was asleep in a large slide. A heron tried its luck off shore. We wandered through a few shops, and then the bus arrived to take us to the airport. Soon enough we were flying back.
The flight back was not particularly exciting. We landed in Guayaquil but didn't get off the plane. Then we spent many, many hours in Quito. This was as boring as most airports and was made worse because they didn't sell alcohol in the airport restaurants because it was Sunday and heavily Catholic Ecuador still has blue laws. The duty free shop had nothing particularly exciting in it, but I did buy some hot chocolate mix as a souvenir.
Finally our red eye left. We got to Atlanta and split up. I happily paid extra to transfer to an earlier flight to Cleveland, and with that one fantastic vacation came to a close.
Photos from that last day are here, but it's the same album from the last post. Scroll to the very bottom to see the few photos from this day.
Unfortunately, the sights in Puerto Baquerizo Moreno are fairly mediocre when compared to the vast natural beauty we'd seen in the past week, or even the ones in the larger town of Puerto Ayora. We went to the local visitor's center for the National Park. That had a good summary of the human history of the Galápagos, as well as a neat relief map of the islands and a solitary Galápagos Tortoise named Pepe, but on the whole wasn't very compelling.
From there we walked along the waterfront. There were plenty of sea lions hanging out on the waterfront, including a few that had taken over a bus stop and one who was asleep in a large slide. A heron tried its luck off shore. We wandered through a few shops, and then the bus arrived to take us to the airport. Soon enough we were flying back.
The flight back was not particularly exciting. We landed in Guayaquil but didn't get off the plane. Then we spent many, many hours in Quito. This was as boring as most airports and was made worse because they didn't sell alcohol in the airport restaurants because it was Sunday and heavily Catholic Ecuador still has blue laws. The duty free shop had nothing particularly exciting in it, but I did buy some hot chocolate mix as a souvenir.
Finally our red eye left. We got to Atlanta and split up. I happily paid extra to transfer to an earlier flight to Cleveland, and with that one fantastic vacation came to a close.
Photos from that last day are here, but it's the same album from the last post. Scroll to the very bottom to see the few photos from this day.