Day 8 Morning - by Wolfgang and Laura

This morning, we woke up at 6 am for our 6:15 breakfast. We had a wide variety of different fruit juices, breads, and eggs. Afterwards we met around 7:15 in order to leave for our morning activities.

As a group, we walked to the nearby dock and split into two groups in order to fit on the boats. Each group rode in a water taxi which took us to the yachts, where we would be for the next 2 hours. During these two hours many people became sea sick and three of them even vomited. 

However this trip wasn’t all bad since we saw a wide array of wild life such as fish, dolphins, and sea lions!

We finally arrived to the capital of the Galapagos, San Cristobal. When we arrived there, we saw many sea lions lying everywhere like they were as common as dogs. This is because sea lions are one of the main attractions of the island. Back in the day, San Cristobal’s most profitable industry was fishing. Now, on this island of 9,000 people, the most profitable industry is tourism. The main ecosystem on this island is the dry forest, which we later passed through.

         

 We then started heading to the tour bus in two groups, to head to our morning activity. The bus took us to a coast shore of San Cristobal. 

This shore was absolutely stunning. The water was crystal clear, the rocks were black as night, and the sand was filled with so many different types of shells. We all longed to go into the sea; however, we could not.  

 As we walked along the shore we saw even more animals such as marine iguanas. These iguanas have been on San Cristobal since the island was discovered. They are black because they only eat seaweed, so they must be able to disguise themselves on the boulders in the ocean.  The walkway became harder to walk on since we were walking uphill. During this hike we were exhausted while our tour guide was hardly breaking a sweat. 

After about an hour or so, we made our way back to the bus, which took us to the restaurant we ate at for lunch. There, we received a typical Ecuadorian meal of soup and popcorn, followed by a plate of grilled tuna, rice, and salad, and a piece of chocolate mousse cake.