8. Final dive … and return to where the land people roam

The final dive of the trip took me to 18 dives in total, just about 18 hours under water over the past week and up to a cumulative total of 406 dives logged; Galápagos is well and truly ticked off the list ✅! We were supposed to be spotting eagle rays on our last dive but the visibility was a bit cloudy so a school of 300 of them could have come and performed a fully choreographed dance in front of us and we wouldn’t have seen unless they were within 10m with full flood lighting. Instead, we watched some white tipped reef shark patrol then I turned my camera to macro mode and poked about in the holes along the shelves that the ocean has very obligingly carved into the rock, which I assume must have been sedimentary layers eroding at different paces. Saw some nice blennies, little puffers, corals and anemones. Also some pretty barracuda, a turtle and one of the elusive eagle rays kindly swung by nice and close for a photo of his pretty patterned back! After the dive, the rinse, wash and hang operation to dry all the gear commenced as we sailed back to Santa Cruz Island. We had to put land shoes back on then our afternoon expedition was on land and a trip to see the giant tortoises - this time at another park but equally excellent, as expected.

Dad had indeed spent his week in Puerto Ayora exploring the town and harbour further, catching the water taxi to the beach for some snorkelling and performing a comprehensive assessment of many of the towns cafes and eateries. He did also manage to squeeze in some time to produce a few excellent paintings.

For my final day back on land on the islands, I spent a few hours at the lovely beach, resting after my dive adventure. I wandered by the fish market and as a British person, thoroughly appreciated the terribly orderly queue that had formed to collect some food. As usual, the sea lions were significantly less orderly - one had decided to have its rest sprawled directly across the cycle lane and the zebra crossing, inconveniencing as many people as possible from one spot. It was thoroughly unconcerned.

On Tuesday morning, we made the trek back to the ‘local’ airport which in fact required a 35 minute taxi ride, a short ferry water-taxi ride across the channel and then a bus that rumbles up the hairpin turns and over all the potholes to get to the airport. The greeting committee at the airport were some of the beautiful, massive and colourful iguanas, which have remained as land iguanas, in very few places in the Galapagos but Baltra Island is one of them. We were again flying business class, which had been a complimentary upgrade from the airline as I’d originally booked legroom seats in the front row prior to the introduction of business class as an option. For a 90 minute flight, it is entirely unnecessary really, which everyone else clearly agreed with as they were in economy, leaving just me and Dad in our section, with our very own air steward for the safety chat at the beginning, which meant even I felt obliged to at least attempt to look like I was paying attention. On landing, a curtain was pulled between us and the riffraff and everyone else had to wait until I’d packed the remaining half of my packed lunch sandwich and free crisps I was given into my bag and then disembarked before they were allowed off! At the baggage carousel, our three bags with their ‘priority’ luggage stickers came off first … just as a group of three cases alone so everyone else stood and watched as we unloaded and wheeled our cases away. We were away and round to the exit and still no other cases had even started to arrive!

I have again excelled myself with the hotel I’ve found for us - back in Guayaquil and on the river but this time along a bit further, on the other side of the wheel and cable cars and in what seems to be partly more ‘old town’ traditional building and also a centre for development and a few big fancy hotels and places going up as the area is growing. Dad has a lovely room with a view out over the river and nice wide patio doors. My room is Ok too - I knew it was advertised as a large room with balcony, so we’d have somewhere to sit out in the evening. However, it is in fact a palatial room which I think has a footprint possibly bigger than my whole flat and includes a corridor of wardrobes, a dressing room, several sinks and a wet room shower as well as a mammoth bedroom with balcony. It’s only got a coffee maker and no boiling water anywhere in the whole place so I will have to mark it down in my reviews for that. It’s also fortunate that we’ve both brought our pint cups, along with a kettle, for tea drinking with us as the sorry excuse for a glass thimble that’s offered in the room as a cup is entirely ridiculous.

It wasn’t available the days we were here last time so after a breakfast at the hotel, that included a thimble cup served with a jug of tepid water and tea bags on the side, we ventured out to go on a city bus tour. Fortunately, the starting place was at Iguana Park so we popped in to see them again before bagging the front seats on the open top bus that departed for the tour. Low hanging trees, planted in the middle and edges of a few roads made it a slightly hazardous ride for some of the taller people, apparently. I didn’t notice any issues myself. In fact, all of Ecuador seems to be built for what must be a more vertically challenged population - clothes would be short in the body even for me and most ‘street furniture’ and overhangs I noticed Dad had to fully duck to avoid significant head injuries! Google tells me the average height for an Ecuadorean man is 5 foot 6 and for a woman it’s 5 feet 1. I AM A TALL PERSON HERE! I have never experienced this before. This means that, essentially, I have grown and am now almost a giant!

It turned out, on our bus tour, that there isn’t a huge amount of note around the city aside from the few places we’d already walked to and seen. Our bus always travelled at a pace best described a ‘fast walking’ so we had time to really look at the roads we were slowly traversing and listen to the full Spanish then English commentary. Aside from the river front, that we’ve walked along and the Santa Ana district that we’re now staying in, there wasn’t a huge amount of sights to take in. It was interesting to see the buildings and different parts of town though - and the balance between some of the obvious poverty alongside the impact of regeneration and modern technologies. We even had a nice slow ride down the centre of the motorway (and back), causing quite the tailback, out to the see the airport!

It was very tiring sitting on the bus tour for almost two hours so after a cafe lunch, I spent the afternoon having a good rest by the rooftop pool with a view out over the river. I swam two lengths of the oddly long ‘swimming lane’ pool but that seemed like more than enough exercise for the day!

For our final day, we had to walk up a bloody hill… 444 steps according to the sadists who’d actually numbered the steps you had to climb specially to get to the top of Santa Ana hill to see the lighthouse and panoramic views out across the city and river. Once at top, there was a weird statue of someone who looked basically like Noddy, a little church where Dad interrupted the, clearly dedicated, security guards both having a rest with their feet up on the pews and a further 48 steps inside the lighthouse to the top. There was also a small ‘museum’ park where they’d gone to the bother of reconstructing one of the old defensive galleons at the top of a the massive hill and also terribly conveniently placed a large sundial in the shade of a tree! A final afternoon of resting by the pool awaited - as seen from one of the view points on the way back down the mountain. It also has a nice river view and a lift that will transport you effort free to the roof top. Much better! Then pints of tea on the balcony and a last dinner of hanging kebabs of meat by the river, with a goblet of sangria each. I’m pretty sure it contained half a bottle or wine infused with some fruity spirits and liquors all added to each glass! All that remains for the next few days, it seems, is to reverse the transatlantic flights first from Ecuador to Madrid then after a few hours stop over there, the absolute indignity of an economy flight back from Madrid to the UK … and quite a few loads of washing to do! Galapagos - and Guayaquil - what an incredible place … the trip of a lifetime (again!).