Tortuga Bay

We wearily got up at 5am to no electricity or running water. In the dark we made our way onto the unlit street in the hopes there'd be a taxi. One showed up booked for someone else but he let us squish in too, then 4 other gringos climbed in the back of the pick-up.

Our boat left promptly at 6am. There was a scramble for the back seats which have fresh air resulting in a few confrontations as late people tried to squeeze in. Luckily we'd been one of the first on board so we had bagged some early. The ride was extremely bumpy and after every big wave I'd be covered in drips from above. Anna on the other hand had it running down the seat so her shorts were drenched! Strangely we didn't notice anybody being sick - perhaps the power of suggestion of giving out sick bags on the way wasn't a good idea, or perhaps people had invested in pills.

Upon landing I went in search of a hotel and found Sir Francis Drake ($40) and we had wonderfully hot and powerful showers then rested for a while.

Eventually I dragged Anna away from her guitar and we headed along the 2.5km red paved road through a cactus forest towards Tortuga Bay. The beach was absolutely stunning with white sand and turquoise water worthy of any Pirates of the Caribbean movie - apart from a disgusting brown, frothy patch in the middle which I presume to be due to an algal bloom (hopefully not sewage!). There were also loads of tiny jellyfish with long blue tentacles which looked like a smaller version of the very painful blue bottle ones you see on Bondi Rescue. We kept our flip flops on just in case.

The sea was very wavy with strong currents. There were surfers but no swimmers so we headed along the beach and around the corner and reached Turtle Cove, a beautiful, calm lagoon surrounded by mangroves. It was full of locals enjoying their weekend.

We both went snorkelling individually while the other guarded our stuff, but the viz was poor and we both chickened out as nobody else was out there and we were worried about crashing into a shark. Still we played in the shallows - it was so salty you could just lie there without sinking - and lay in the sun.

It was a beautiful afternoon until a ranger with a whistle started clearing the beach at 4:30pm (it shut at 6pm so even with the walk back we're not sure why it was quite so early). We stopped to get a video of the piles of spitting iguanas and got severely whistled at!!

We had Chinese style noodles in an outdoor street food area with seating. It was lovely to have a load of vegetables after a bit of a drought the last couple of days.

We went to the dock which is lit up at night and saw a tiny shark and an eagle ray however the water wasn't that clear. We posed with some pelicans and there were also the obligatory sleepy sea lions.

We went T-shirt shopping then headed to bed. On our way to the shops Anna tripped over something and we noticed that a noise had stopped. We quickly realised it was the power cable to some bouncy castle slides, which instantly started to deflate on top of the poor children inside. A man ran over and plugged it back in and Anna tried to apologise but neither of us could stop laughing!!!

A lovely last day to our Galapagos experience which has been like a mini (albeit pricey) vacation. The Galapagos truly live up to their name of the enchanted islands...the scenery is so varied and stunning, the animals are so unafraid and ubiquitous, and the people we met were absolutely wonderful.Okumaya devam et