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Ecuador 2020: Galapagos Islands

Mindy and I spent a week in the Galapagos Islands: four days on Santa Cruz and three days on San Cristobal. Highlights included Las Grietas, snorkel trips to Pinzon and Kicker Rock, a day at La Loberia, and seeing turtles at El Chato Tortoise Reserve.

Other photos from this trip can be found here.

This lizard greeted us as we walked off the plane. On the ferry from the airport to Santa Cruz, we saw a manta ray! The Puerto Ayora fish market The fish market has lots of scavengers looking for an easy snack We decided to walk to Las Grietas. The views were pretty great. Las Grietas is this little canyon where you can go swimming. The dynamic range of my GoPro is poor. The snorkeling was surprisingly good. I guess there's a tunnel somewhere to the ocean, which explains why fish live here. The next day we went snorkeling at a place called Pinzon. This may be the largest school of fish I have ever seen. When sea lions relax, their fins are up in the air like this. We caught a little tuna on the trip, and I think the plan was to make sushi, but that never happened. I was pretty seasick, so I didn't mind. Here I am at the Charles Darwin Research Station. It was very hot out. They had many giant tortoises here. This is what a giant tortoise looks like when it yawns. Every night, they close down this street and a ton of little restaurants take it over. There's an ugly fish you can order called the Brujo. I decided to try the Brujo. The Brujo was delicious! The following night, I convinced Mindy to try the Brujo. Despite her initial hesitation, she enjoyed it. We visited the El Chato Tortoise Reserve in the highlands. Turtles like hanging out in the mud. You're required to stay 6 feet away from the turtles at all times. That afternoon, I decided to walk to Tortuga Bay. If this beach were in Florida, it would be covered with tens of thousands of people. Instead, there were maybe 10. Fun fact: Mindy and I met on February 29th, 2012. Here we are, celebrating our "second anniversary". The following morning, we took a speed boat to San Cristobal. It was bumpy, unpleasant, and around two hours. San Cristobal has even more sea lions than Santa Cruz. Playa Mann Heading to La Loberia La Loberia Mindy snorkeling with a turtle she found Another sea lion! I've never seen a bird with a beak like that before. We went snorkeling at Kicker Rock We swam through this passage which was pretty cool. Visibility was pretty poor due to recent rains, but we still managed to see a hammerhead shark. There's Mindy The walls of Kicker Rock had a bit of wildlife on them. After Kicker Rock, we visited a beach only accessible by boat. There was good snorkeling here too I swam with this turtle for almost ten minutes. Amazing! No trip to the Galapagos would be complete without seeing a blue footed booby. So many sea lions! Heading back to the mainland
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