San Cristobal and Departure

I wake up and go upstairs. This will be the last time I see the sunrise from a boat’s deck for a long while. I guess I will miss  this two-week habit.

We are moored in San Cristobal. The sunrise does not disappoint.

From the deck I see a group of sea-lions playing in the water just below me.

After breakfast, we  have the last briefing. William explains the procedures for checking in for our flights. Its time to finish packing. We load the suitcases onto the deck. 

Most of the passengers on our boat are staying for a day or two in San Cristobal. The few that do fly out have to wait until mid-day for the flight.

The plan is simple, we go to the port. The crew members will take our suitcases and check us in for the flight, and half an hour before the flight a minibus will take us to the airport.

We have time to kill, and Ilan suggest we take a cab to a beach outside town. The place is called Las Loberias. The cab fare is 2$ and the ride is about 15min. We ask the cab driver to pick us up in about an hour (we take a big safety margin).

The trail leads us to a rocky beach. We encounter sea lions, iguanas and crabs.

We continue along the trail and get to a sandy area. There is a large colony of sea lions living here. 

In the shallow water there is a pack of sea lion pups busy playing. 

We watch them for a while. By now we start worrying that we need to head back.

We get to the parking lot, but the taxi is not there. We sit and wait.

A local lizard on the asphalt provides some distraction while we wait.

After about 15 minutes two cabs show up. Neither of them is our driver, they unload passengers heading for the shore. We take a ride back with one of them.

We still have plenty of time. We are not too hungry, but this is our last chance to get local ceviche. The second time at this nice little restaurant is not disappointing. 

We still have time. We stroll back to the pier and take last session of shooting the birds and crabs.

A pelican in mid-dive

The minibus comes to pick us up. The ride to the airport is 5 minutes. The terminal here is minimal. Soon we are on the airplane, and up we go above the island.