Enjoy Galapagos at bargain prices when you base yourself in Puerto Ayora Santa Cruz island.

When you travel to Galapagos islands: your fixed price plain ticket has been paid for, your $100 for the park entrance fee and the island tax has been paid for, no matter how long you stay.

The bargains are joining "last minute" organized cruises from Puerto Ayora. Most boat tours to Galapagos islands will sell last minute tickets at bargain basement prices.

It was my favorite laid back pass time on Galapagos: just strolling around the harbor, waiting for a boat with a last minute berth and hopping along for a dirt cheap price. Just be prepared that there can be a complete week between these utterly cheap trips to Galapagos islands, but if you love to relax on your holiday, this is a great way to save money.

Strolling around in Puerto Ayora Ecuador

Puerta Ayora is your little "Spanish puerta" or door to both Ecuador and Galapagos:

• no need to spend time in Quito to enjoy Ecuador before boarding on a Galapagos cruise. Just head straight to the Galapagos islands and get acquainted with the people of Ecuador in Puerto Ayora.
   
• strolling around the harbor you will see much of sea creatures already, like this sea lion having an appetite for human legs.

Puerto Ayora Santa Cruz is small and easily navigable, so its straightforward to find your own way around town: the main drag, Charles Darwin, runs east-west along the bay

• at the west end of town you will find the Academy Bay port, the main grocery store, hardware store and the post office
   
• at the east end of town is the famous Charles Darwin Research Station
   
• in between are most of Puerto Ayora’s hotels, bars, shops and the only bank, El Banco del Pacifico.

The hotels in Puerto Ayora are plentiful: from cheap hotel rooms for backpackers for about $6 only in the low season to luxury hotels and oceanfront bed and breakfasts for around $ 75 single / $ 115 double per night.

Overall staying as long as you can in Puerto Ayora Santa Cruz will be worth every penny when you are looking for an affordable stay in what most likely will be your one in a life time travel to Galapagos islands.

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For those like us that get seasick easily on long cruises, Santa Cruz Galapagos is a welcome island to stretch your legs, visit villages with real people and keep off your cruise ship for a few days.

This Santa Cruz map shows you the second biggest of the Galapagos Islands (only Isla Isabela is bigger) with an area of 986 km². Isla Santa Cruz is actually a large dormant volcano with a maximum altitude of 864 meters.

We reached its harbor Puerto Ayora which has the largest human population on the Galapagos islands. The best news however is that this island has many hotels, so you can say goodbye to your cruise ship cabine and enjoy solid ground under your feet for as log as you stay.

Lots of things to see and to do on Isla Santa Cruz Galapagos, we especially enjoyed our bike-rides. Of course there is the Charles Darwin Research Station with Lonesome George – the very last tortoise of his particular species from Pinta Island – and many other giant tortoise preserves.

On a funny note: although Santa Cruz houses the Charles Darwin Research Station, Charles Darwin himself never set foot on this island!

But best of all: Santa Cruz Galapagos is a great place to be when you are not used in sailing for days on the sea like me I will post what we did exactly in Santa Cruz in my next post.

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In order to enjoy South Plaza island the fullest, you need to arrive before the tourists arrive. That means early in the morning greeted by the sea lion colony on the coast and with a lovely sunrise.

The night however from Genovesa Island Galapagos to South Plaza in our little Galapagos cruise was tough: we needed to take 2 and a half tablet of Primatour in order not to get too seasick. But all that was well worth the early arrival: a beautiful sunrise, sea lions, land iguanas and even another blue footed booby.

South Plaza island is famous for it’s typical vegetation: pear cactus trees make the "opuntia cactus forests" and "sesuvium" grows at ground level. It’s red from  June till January and green during the rainy season. Sesuvium is the main nourishment for the large colony of "grazing" land iguanas on South Plaza Island.

A little bit of snorkeling with the awesome sea lions and off we went towards close by Isla Santa Cruz.

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If you love birds, then make sure to include Genovesa in your Galapagos island cruise.

Why would you put yourself through a night sailing in roughs and getting sea sick like me?

Because from all the islands in your Galapagos cruise, Genovesa is the ideal place to watching countless beautiful birds you wont see anywhere else.

We were lucky our guide spotted a short eared Galapagos owl, which as you can see on the picture blends in perfectly with the Galapagos environment.

Walking from Prince Philip’s Steps towards the black cliffs, it’s cute to see pairs of birds nesting, utterly protected inside the cliffs.

This red-footed booby is the smallest booby in Galapagos and the only one that nests in trees.

Other birds you will surely see without needing binoculars are pigeons, herons, sea-gulls and the above red footed boobies, while frigatebirds fly endlessly searching for food.

If you do love birds and you don’t mind to get seasick (or make sure to bring anti-seasick pills, which I unfortunately forgot…), then make sure to include Genovesa in your Galapagos islands cruise.

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Even more romantic: sometimes you can have this beach entirely for yourself!

Now some people do have funny ideas to tempt Darwin’s survival of the fittest theories…

Survival of the fittest? …

Please do not leave anything behind, where-ever you go (on the entire planet) than your footsteps!

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Birds and all animals for that matter never encountered hostile humans, so you can really come up close and personal with the animals you want to observe and take marvelous pictures (depending on your photography skills of course).

Galapagos Flycatcher

Just have a look at this Galapagos Flycatcher: couldn’t get any closer than that!

This Galapagos flycatcher (Myiarchus magnirostris) was exceptionally bold and curious. After first sitting on the hat of our Galapagos National Park Naturalist Guide, the flycatcher went and visited the heads of most of us.

Picture taken at Post Office Beach during my visit to the Post Office Barrel on Floreana Island.

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I took a flight from Amsterdam to Quito, but we had to stop in Bonaire and Guayaquil.

It’s a "relatively" short flight: less than 10 hours later we arrived in Bonaire to stretch our legs… Then another 2.5hour flight to Guayaquil and yet another half an hour to Quito…

All in all not easy to reach (and then you are still not at the Galapagos islands) but you are in need of a good night rest!

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Frigate Birds in Galapagos and beyond are the only sea birds that are not waterproofed!

Frigate birds produce hardly any oil and therefore don’t want to land in the ocean. They do attack and rob other seabirds of their fish.

Since they are never in the sea, you will notice them up in the air: they are those large black birds looking like big black kites. And they perform a fast and amazing display when they dive after fish dropped by other seabirds.

Their body is as big as a chicken and the tallest Galapagos frigate bird can have a wingspan reaching more than 7 feet (or 2m).

Although frigate birds seems to have black feathers when you see them flying in the Galapagos sky, their feathers produce different colours when they refract the sunlight:
 

• Magnificent Galapagos Frigate Birds will refract purple colours
   
• Great Galapagos Frigate Birds will refract green colours.

Male frigate birds have a typical red patch of skin at their throat. During courtship, males will force air in this red gular pouch as if they were carrying a big red balloon.

We didn’t see any frigate birds’ courtship when we visited Galapagos, as the birds where hatching when we set foot on the North Seymour Islands.

On the picture you see a female Frigate Bird of Galapagos as females are marked with white colours below.

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The next hurdle to take was trying not to get seasick. A daunting task when you see people next to you suddenly vomiting…

Also our cabine was for 2 people: 1 bed above the other, and I advice you to take the lowest bed if you have a sensitive stomach.

Having said all this: you need to know that you will be on the sea when you travel to Galapagos, so it’s advice-able to take seasick pills with you, or to get some experience traveling on the sea before you embark on a long and costly cruise around Galapagos.

On the other hand: we already could admire a blue heron when embarking our "cruise ship" (it’s a great word for a "luxury boat" named "The Darwin Explorer")…

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What I will never forget and what sets the stage for your whole Galapagos vacation was the sea lion coming to greet us!

Sea lion’s welcome on Galapagos!

2 things are special on Galapagos:

1. you are only allowed with very tiny groups on each and every island at one time, so it’s all but mass-tourism
2. the animals just come to you in stead of you needing to wait hours in order to see a glimpse in the distance!

It’s just unforgettable!!!

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