Alright, so my previous description of how we were getting to the ship was a bit off. We are boarding a flight in Quito that STOPS in Guayaquil and then eventually lands in Isla Baltra where we will board the ship. I also had the name of our cruise ship wrong -- we are actually on the Gemini - pretty apropos, eh?
So...the 4:30 wakeup call ended up being somewhat unnecessary because I woke up at midnight. I think my body was like "oh this is your six PM nap" -- I caught maybe another 60-90 minutes after that but gave up entirely by 2am. Packed the suitcases, rolled them outside to be picked up, had some tea and bread at the breakfast, and on the shuttle bus by 6. Arrived at the airport and through security WAY too early in my opinion (6:30 or so for a 8:10 departure). I guess it's a good thing there were some shops and lounges available.
I tried really hard to convince Baba to get this hat:
Yes this was in the domestic airport too (sorry L&R, we did not stop and get anything here).
With so much time, we stopped in the lounge to get a second breakfast. Nainai had mentioned this cool fruit - hard on the outside, looks kind of like an orange.
Turns out it is passion fruit! (I've never had one whole like this before - I think L&R would say the crunch of the seeds was very satisfying.
The view from the lounge was also not bad:
Couple interesting things about the flight: 1) Before arriving, the flight attendants had to treat all of our luggage with some sort of ecological WHO spray, so they walked down the aisles opening every baggage compartment, spraying the luggage, and closing it again. Felt bad for the people with fragrance allergies...maybe I just had guava on the mind but it smelled kind of fruity. 2) The airport where we landed was so small that the pilot had to land on the single runway and then then around at the end so that they could come back to the actual terminal. Here is my first sighting of Darwin's Playground!
Literally walking from the plane to the terminal we passed our first giant iguana. Eating a cactus leaf no less!
After collecting our bags, we zipped off on a zodiac adventure...
Ok a very short adventure -- just a seven minute ride or so to get to our home of the next week: National Geographic Gemini!
There were no Disney characters or decorations, but it's a fairly nice room still. This was the cheapest cabin available - so no balcony, just an oceanview window.
We went through the obligatory muster drill and then got our first educational lecture - just a quick intro to the Islands, their formation, the endemic animals, and our planned voyage.
After a short break to get changed, we were off on our first expedition! Zodiac exploration ride among the mangroves at Black Turtle Cove on the Santa Cruz island. Not five minutes into the ride....we come upon a group of blue footed boobies:
Here's a female looking straight at me:
And the lone male of the crew (notice how his feet are a more sea green color compared to the female cornflower blue).
There were also some gnarly Sally Lightfoot crabs. We saw them feeding on a jellyfish at the dock earlier.
A shot to convey how close to the birds we could get.
Also passed by some whitetip and blacktip reef sharks.
And a TON of turtles. Floating, eating, we even came upon a couple mating sessions. I'd say more but this is a family friendly blog, let's just say apparently turtles and humans share some similarities...
Can you spot the warbler?
It was pretty cool how the birds would just stay there and pose for you. We saw a bunch but I'll just keep one more photo here:
Ok one more. I don't recall what these even are. 😆
The sun was setting (read: it was getting colder) and I was getting hungry. So I was glad to be heading back. Here's a cool shot of the cacti landscape against the skyline.
The guides were great -- very very knowledgeable - the zodiac was very nimble and the fellow guests were polite and pleasant -- all in all, a very successful first expedition! All smiles on the way back home to dinner.
Toasting to the start of a great vacation! Calling it an early night today because excursions start at 6:20am tomorrow...jury is out on whether Baba and I will make the first one.
Good night from the middle of the ocean!
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