Day 44: Adios Galapagos, Hasta Luego (Galapagos to Quito)

3/8/2017

Today was the day we left the Galapagos to head back to Quito on the mainland. Our five days in the Galapagos absolutely flew by. It felt like I blinked. We saw so many amazing animals, beautiful scenery, and met amazing people.

We spent a leisurely morning at the hotel which was a nice change from early mornings always getting ready for a tour. But eating breakfast at 7:45 and seeing everyone leave for their tour today definitely made me envious. Going into this trip I though it would be "my galapagos trip." But now, I see it as just an introduction. I want to come back maybe twice. Once again in the hot and rainy season to do an eight day boat tour. This seems to be the way to go because you see more islands than when you're based on one. Also, having more days would be nice. I definitely want to see a penguin, a boobie dance, and climb the volcano. A chance to see the Galapagos in then cool and dry season would be nice too. Some say more animals are out because they aren't hiding from the heat.

After we checked out of the hotel, we took the water taxi to Porta Ayora, then drove to the canal, next took the ferry to the bus that drove us to the airport. On the way, we saw a huge flock (30ish) blue Footed Boobies right by the ferry dock! They were all swimming, flying, and diving for food. Unfortunately our transport guy from the hotel was in a huge hurry up so you can wait mood, so he gave us no time to enjoy the site. Once at the airport, we learned that our flight was delayed by 1.5 hours. Then the airport security wanted to hand search my bag because they suspected that I had stole some rocks... I was very confused at first as to one, why I would be carrying rocks around, and two, why they would care. It turns out that it was salt from Peru that they had seen so everything was fine. Then I realized that they care about rocks because they don't want anyone taking anything from the Galapagos out.

After a long wait, we finally got on our way to Quito. By the time we got to our hotel, it was 8 o'clock. We found a local restaurant that had a guitarist playing nearby. Most of the restaurants are on our street which is awesome, but most seemed to have karaoke going on which isn't exactly what we were looking for after a day of traveling. The hotel seems to be in a prime spot for going out though. It was 8:30 and there were tons of people walking around with live music in every restaurant and bar (keeping in mind it's only Wednesday.) Tomorrow I hope to check out more of the night life around.

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