Our flight was uneventful and landed us at the airport on Baltra Island. From there we were driven by taxi to the ferry which took us to Isla Santa Cruz. The steps and rocks and dock were home to lots of colourful crabs and a number of sea lions basking in the sun. The nephew of the tour company drove us all the way across the island to Puerto Ayora where our hotel awaited.The Baltra area is very dry with many cacti and bare branched trees dotting the sand.Everywhere you look you can see iguanas and our driver pointed out some huge tortoises in a field we passed by.We drove from north end of Isla Santa Cruz to the south end The landscape changed dramatically going from dry to tropical. There are some farms on this island with non native plants and animals like cows, pigs, chickens, cats, dogs, banana trees, mango trees, sugar cane- the list goes on.Our hotel was in Puerto Ayora. It was a good room but we sure got our exercise walking up 4 flights of stairs.We went to the Charles Darwin Research Center but much of it was closed for renovations. Lonesome George, the last example of his species, used to live here but he died in 2012 leaving no offspring. Another extinct tortoise species.For dinner we went to a restaurant on the water for sushi. While we sat on the patio overlooking the harbour, a baby sea lion crawled up onto the patio and entertained us by rolling around and waving his flippers in the air. He was really quite a ham in front of the cameras! Thomas de Berlanga Puerto Ayora Partly cloudy 28
