Day 406 – Isabela to San Cristobal
Isabela to Santa Cruz
Today we woke up early as we had to pack and get to the Isabela Ferry Terminal at 5.30am. We left our accommodation Punto Arena and walked for 20 minutes.
At the terminal, there was a long line of tourists waiting to have their bags inspected. The main things checked were fruit and shoes. Almost everyone was made to clean their shoes, including us.
After the inspection we made our way to the pier, where we had to buy boat taxi tickets. Each ticket cost 1 USD ($1.51 AUD) per person (p/p). Then we had to get our names ticked off by the captain. We weren’t actually told, but our names appeared to be missing. After several calls by the captain we were told to get into the boat taxi.
The taxi took us to a ferry called Neptune, and we went upstairs behind the captain. The ferry was full in the standard cabin. We left Isabela at 6.05am.
It was nice to sit behind the captain. We had nice views of the deep blue water and the sun rising to kiss the waves. However, there isn’t much shelter so it was cold. Along the way we saw some sea lions jumping out of the water.
We arrived at Santa Cruz at 8.20am and had to get into another small ferry costing $0.50 USD ($0.75 AUD) p/p.
We had breakfast near the pier and then went to 1835 Coffee Lab to chill for a while. From the art market, we purchased some small souvenirs.
Fish Market
Tortuga Bay
Since we had failed to go to Tortuga Bay a few days ago (Day 399), we decided to go now. We left our backpacks at the ticket agency near the supermarket where we had originally purchased the ferry tickets. The walk took an hour.
At the bay, there are some nice shady areas with clothes hangers throughout, which are super useful. The water is shallow. We went snorkelling for a while and enjoyed the water. There was only a handful of small fish.
We left around midday, and on the way back, there were heaps of marine iguanas returning to the beach. The walk back to town took another hour and we stopped for mandatory ice cream from a corner store.
Santa Cruz to San Cristobal
At 1pm, we picked up our bags and walked to the dock. We had to show our tickets and get a lanyards with the boat’s name from one of the small huts in front of the pier. We had to register, which only involved writing down our passport numbers.
Once again we required to pay for a boat taxi that cost $0.50 USD ($0.75 AUD). The boat ride was super bumpy. Close to San Cristobal, we had a pod of dolphins follow our boat, which was really cool.
We arrived at San Cristobal Island at 4.30pm. It was surprisingly cold here. We walked to our airbnb, Hostal Suiza. It was owned by a friendly German lady. The room was nice and large.
San Cristobal is a very small town. We walked around looking for tours from various travel agencies. After talking to several of them we settled on Eco Challenger Tour Agency.
Then we found a restaurant for dinner called Cris Burger. It was one of the few restaurants that was open. The burgers were nice.
Afterwards, we just walked back to our hotel to sleep.