Royal Palm Hotel - Galapagos Santa Cruz

... synchronization no more than a foot apart and plunge into the crystal clear water, sometimes barely missing the stern of a boat, and three or four seconds later reappear. The clarity of the water made it possible to see the line of bubbles that followed them under the water.<br><br>Our boat arrived, the Luna Azul. This boat was by far the best boat we had travelled on, it was luxurious compared to other boats we had travelled on with blue leather ...

... of the sea lions came to play, swimming in amongst us and passing within inches, around, underneath, she was playing. We were playing for about 10 minutes and I took some photographs with Jody&#8217;s underwater camera. I called to the others but they had seen something else and were calling to me. I swam quickly back towards the shore where Jody, Niamh and Christie were swimming in the shallows with a Penguin. This Penguin was darting all around us but not moving away more than ...

... a taxi waiting for the visitors that we had just passed. We waited and decided to ask them if we could join them in the taxi, it would be too big an ordeal to try and control Niamhs bike back down the 20km road to town, and likely to be very dangerous. It wasn&#8217;t long before they came out and were happy to oblige. We put the bikes on the back of the UTE, paid $10 for the privilege and were back in town within 30 minutes. Returning back down the hill we reflected on ...

We had a lazy morning once more, I prepared breakfast and we decided to go to one of the other local spots Las Grietas. We got there by water taxi for $0.50cents, Jody and Niamh half price. The water taxi took us about 200metres and dumped us at a pathway. We then followed a pathway that passed, what I can only describe as, an up market area of Puerto Ayora where there were some very attractive houses and luxury hotels. After a 10minute walk we arrived at a ...

... covered area with local traders offering fruit and vegetable. We purchased wide variety of vegetables and fruit, we bought a large pumpkin which I subsequently turned into pumpkin soup for lunch.<br><br>After lunch we went looking for the triathlon finish line. We didn't have to look very far, it was less than 50metres from our apartment. Many locals by this time were beginning to gather along the sides of the road, it was a big event for the small island.<br><br>We walked up the ...

... though, so unfortunately his turtle sub species will die with him. He&#8217;s actually thought to be around 85 (I may be slightly off here), but they believe he could live to be as old as 250. Also at the research center we saw the baby turtles of different ages. They all have numbers painted on them to denote what island they came from and what number baby they were when born. It&#8217;s pretty cute ...

Today we got up early to go diving the boat ride out there was and hour and a half and real bumpy. We got there and tested our gear then went to the dive site the first dive was ok saw lots and lots of fish. We had lunch, one guy was throwing up and I wasn't feeling great either so I didn't eat. Then we went out for our second dive, we jumped ...

Had to get up at 5am to fly here... so tired. Flight was good Tame airline again. We flew to an island then caught a boat and a bus to Santa Cruz which is where we are staying. We checked into our hotel, Espana, then walked for 2 hours to the beach where the iguana's are. On the way we saw darwin's finches and lots of lizards. The photos describe the iguana's better than I could. We came home and went to the wharf, pelicans and sealions were everywhere and you can walk right up to them. <br>

... more surprised to see that we were driving through desert like rockland with cacti everywhere, i was expecting a tropical paradise. As we got higher it did get very jungle like, and as we went down, there was more of the same. It is definitely not what i expected.<br><br>We checked into our hotel and went for a long walk down a path that seemed endless, we got to this long surf beach and near the rocks we found the Iguanas, lots ...

... all night, and a few geckos, which are rather cute looking, but move much too quickly for my comfort level. There was one that was hanging out above my bed. According to Laura they are good luck....so lucky me? We got up early the next morning. Laura, Sarah (a graduate student from UC Santa Barbara), and I went to check out the giant tortoises. It's really neat because aside from the juvenile ...