Day 164: Darwin’s Galapagos

San Cristobal – Santa Cruz, Ecuador

We had to go back to the main island Santa Cruz again due to the fact that we need to travel to Baltra island tomorrow to catch our flight back to the mainland.

Even though we had been in Santa Cruz two times, we didn’t get to check out the island itself much. We had been using it as a base to do excursions elsewhere.

The two main sites nearby the city center are Las Grietas and Tortuga Bay. Las Grietas is this body of fresh water in between two cliffs. It’s quite a hike to get there, requiring balancing on rocks under the brutal sun. The water was cold and numbing but I didn’t mind for it’s also crystal clear.

As for Tortuga Bay, it’s reachable by an hour of walk. It’s on a nicely built pathway so wasn’t as painful but it seemed to never end. The wide sandy beach is so vast that one can see the curvature of the horizon. Watching the sunset on the beach brought a strange melancholic feeling. I was probably sad to finally have to leave Galapagos and I longed to share the moment and view with family and friends.