The good weather returned so off we went on a long walk. Total round trip was close to 12km but the rewards were worth it. Tortuga Bay is a 45 minute walk from the entrance to the beach along a stone boardwalk in the forest. The walk in was lovely. Lots of Opuntia which we have always called beaver tail cactus. Here they grow tall, maybe 18′ or so.
Once you get to the beach, this is what greets you.
Soft white sugar sand, and right now turtle eggs very well protected by roped off areas. The ranger hut had noted 16 nests with 52 hatchlings so far.
Those are tiny little turtle foot prints. They hatch at night for safety so we didn’t see any but we did see some shell leftovers.
About a 1km walk down the soft sand beach and we ran into these guys.
They emerge from the water cold and either sunbathe like below or huddle together like above.
There were also some pelicans flying about.
And a ton of the iguanas swimming around.
And right in the grasses were hermit crabs. Cute little guys as they scurried about.
Just around a bend is a swimming area. Some enterprising soul built a beach bar (looks a bit like something from Gilligan’s Island). Nobody home today sadly, so I had to fill in. Not much in the way of inventory either. Sand mojito anyone?
The swimming area was lovely. I could see this being quite busy on weekends with the locals.
It was a long hot walk back but well worth coming out. By the time we got back to the hotel we were quite cooked so a dip in the pool was very welcome. We then headed out for a late lunch at The Rock which is set up for tourists. Food was really good even if they were out of guava juice. One of the thing we’ve noticed here is that the napkins are about the size of a piece of toilet paper. The Rock had our usual size napkins, which has been rare, we both commented on it. Small stuff still amuses us I suppose.
Dinner was back at the Galapagos Deli. We both enjoyed our meals there the other day and today was no different. Simple sandwiches on home made brown bread. Really really yummy. Bread and a lot of other things are made onsite so super fresh.
Tomorrow we board our boat for a week. 8 days 7 nights and about 14 stops. It should be awesome but we likely won’t be able to post anything while on board. I’ve checked the cellular coverage and it is pretty much nil anywhere except the main towns. I’ll still do a daily update, just likely can’t post anything for a week till we get back to this hotel.