galapagos day 1

This morning I got up at 6:30 so I could leave for the airport at 7:30, which apparently meant 7:15 to Gonzalo, who was giving me a ride, but fortunately I was ready. At the airport I had to buy a $10 card (like a credit card) which allowed me to go to the Galapagos. The guy at the ticket counter told us it was too early to check in and we should come back at 8:30. Our flight was for 9:45 and they clearly stated on the AeroGal website to get there 2 hours early for a flight to the Galapagos. We had a nice 45 minutes in the cafe and then got our tickets (no line!) and went through security. I had a razor in my backpack, Ali had aerosol bugspray, and nobody had to take off their coats or shoes. Needless to say it was the fastest security line I've got through. We then waited in the extremely large nation departures terminal (all of 4 gates haha). We took of on Ecuadorian time (aka late) and had a 35 minute flight to Guayaquil, and then an hour and a half flight to the Galapagos. There were very few clouds until we got to the Islands, and then there were lots of clouds. We landed on a totally barren island which had cactus trees, brown/red dirt and rocks, one runway, and a couple hangars, but no airport building. We boarded buses, went about 10 minutes down the road, and boarded little water-taxi boats to cross a channel in between the little island and the big island. We then boarded other buses and went 45 minutes, mostly down a perfectly straight road. We transitioned from desert to jungle, although the cacti remained, on our way to Puerto Apoyo. The town is actually quite large; there are lots of restaurants and little tourist kitchy shops. Lots of people ride bikes here, which is neat, and I have yet to see a yellow taxi.
Our hotel has a pool, and pool table and incredibly slow, but free, wi-fi. (I used my magic trick to fix Natalee's internet, which was satisfying.) We went to the Charles Darwin Research Center and saw little turtles and HUGE turtles. We could get right up next to them and take pictures with them :) I'm not going to put up any pictures until I get home, though, because my computer would probably explode from the effort. We saw Lonesome George, who is the only remaining turtle from Pinta Island, so he's the last of his particular species.

More tomorrow!
Love Alex