I got up a bit early and headed to the Tortuga Bay path for a quick run. After signing in at the entrance, I headed down the path once again, which was much less crowded than in later in the day. Pretty much the only people on it were me, and locals either jogging or walking for exercise. I finally came to the beach, which I ran along a bit, and realized I was the only person on this gorgeous beach. There was absolutely no garbage or signs of humans and I praised God for His awesome creativity. Something is pretty cool about just being able to run along a bright white beach with just you and the iguanas.
I then headed back the hotel, where we ate yet another breakfast, this time figuring out that we could steal left-over marmalade from tables whose occupants had already left.
We were a bit bummed at the overcast skies as our bus drove to the dock, but as soon as we loaded onto the boat and headed out, the skies cleared up, and our spot on the bow was the perfect place for tanning! Yes, I know tanning causes cancer, but we wore lots of sunscreen, thanks to Liz’s fantastic supply of Target’s waterproof 30 SPF.
It's a good thing the national park believes in letting nature take its course...I can't imagine mowing this tube-like vegetation (This pic so does not do the scenery justice)
We first went to another crazy island with bright red tube-like vegetation and tons of sea lions. There were all types of birds, including blue-footed boobies doing a mating dance, and lots of other huge birds.
Buen provecho! That's "bon appetite" Ecuador style
Then we hopped on the boat again and those of us who wanted to were able to snorkel for about 40 minutes along a huge cliff. The water was so much clearer and since it was a sunny day, it was much more enjoyable to swim. And we saw so many incredible fish! They were brightly colored and HUGE! I got to swim after and watch a sea lion play right by me again.
My sea lion friend, I don't know which one of us is more curious about the other
Eventually, we had to get back in the boat, but we headed to another island, we got to do some more snorkeling! There we saw a manta ray and a shark and of course lots of crazy cool fish! Sorry for all the exclamation marks, but it was amazing! !!!!!!
I think I might be in a postcard
Well, our guide finally rounded us all up and we took our dingy back to the slightly bigger boat and headed back to Santa Cruz. We did some quality tourist shopping and then booked it back to the hotel for dinner. After dinner, we finished up with tourist shopping and then realized that we really wanted ice cream. By this time, it was fairly late so we wandered around town trying to find an open place. Many restaurants were open, but had shut off their ice cream machine or stopped serving ice cream. WHO DOES THAT? Seriously.
But finally, we found a restaurant that was smart (if restaurants can be smart) and were able to sit down and order a HUGE thing of ice cream to share. But it turned out that the chef (er, ice cream preparer) had forgotten some ingredients, aka almond pralines, so we got another one for free! Talk about a successful ice cream run.
Ice cream that was so worth wandering around the streets of Puerto Ayora late at night (don't worry, Mom and Dad, we were the most dangerous things on the streets due to our intense craving for ice cream)
After we were nice and hyped-up on sugar, we headed back to the hotel and crashed.
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