Journey of Galapagos: Finding a Boat

Reading up on the Galapagos before we left we knew that this part of our trip was not going to be cheap. We heard that the best way to see the Galapagos due to distance between islands is by a boat cruise (majority of the boats are for about 16 passengers) and that the cheapest is by staying at hostels and doing day trips. We pre-purchased our flights and headed over with nothing booked hoping we could get a last minute deal.

We arrived on the beautiful island of Santa Cruz. The airport is on the furthest end of the island and to get to town we had to take a free 10-minute bus to a ferry, then a $2 10-minute ferry and then a $2.50 45-minute bus ride into town. Jon and I were one of the last ones on so it was standing room only for us.

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Dock in Galapagos.

We got off the bus at the small bus and were immediately confronted with several “last-minute super deals” agencies for cruises. After visiting several of them noting they were all approximately the same price (about 20% less than pre-booking) we chose a five-day mid-range cruise leaving that day and ending in the beach town island of Isla Isabela giving us a few days to hang out there before returning to Santa Cruz for our flight out. As none of them really spoke English we had no idea where our cruise would be going or what we would be doing on it. The only thing we did know is that they wanted us to pay in cash and we had to get back to the other side of the island as that is where the boat was docked! Jon and I were able to each take money from our joint account and from our personal accounts, however, wanting to have a little bit of cash on us we were still short $200. We got the agency to agree to hold our driver’s license and when we returned we would pay them the $200.

Cruise booked, we had 2-hours so we headed off on borrowed bikes to the Charles Darwin Research Station. We were able to see giant tortoises up close and learned that of the original 14 species 11 have survived.