Galapagos Islands = paradise and some Quito

So spring break=amazing! It started the 20th and that morning, really really early, me and 3 other friends, Taylor, Ryan, and Jason, left for the Galapagos Islands. The trip was a tad expensive, but covered pretty much everything and was soo worth it! We got there on Thursday afternoon with time to walk to Tortuga Bay (which actually took like an hour.. long, hot walk.). That was the most beautiful beach I've ever seen.. white sand all around, no shells, and clear blue water! We couldn't swim there because the current was so strong so we walked down to the bay area, where there were absolutely no waves at all! Then we saw a few sharks and decided it was time to get out haha We amused ourselves by taking jumping and shadow pictures and by drawing in the sand. glorious.

Friday we got up early to go to Las Grietas (were going to go kayaking, but this was definitely the better option!). It's 2 cliffs where you can jump from different rocks into beautifully clear blue water! It was amazing. Then we went to the Charles Darwin station where there were too many mosquitos, but got to see tons of turtles and very very small beach that also had too many mosquitos. On Saturday, we left early to go to Isabela Island, which took about 3 hours on a very large boat! We walked around the island a bit, went to the turtle preservation place (where we saw many many big big turtles! even got to see some turtles having sex. pleasant.), stopped by a large lake to see one flamingo (but still amazing since i've never seen one!), walked around a shark resting area of the island (but only saw one shark and then saw a family of sea lions just hangin out on the beach!), and then went snorkeling! While snorkeling, we got to see a few penguins, a bunch of pretty fish, and some sea lions! The sea lions are not afraid of humans and will swim right up in your face! We left the island about 4 pm, but didn't actually get back to Santa Cruz (where we were staying.. in the Red Booby hotel!) until 1 am! a 9 hour boat ride with a lot of black smoke, a pretty sunset, some napping, chilliness, a bit of rain, and moving about 5 mph! ridiculous, but it was pretty cool just hangin out on the pacific!

Sunday, we went with a tour group to Floreana Island, on yet another boat. The boat trip was about 2 hours and Ryan and I got to lie on top of the not very big boat while everyone else was suffocating below us inside the boat! We walked a bit to get to a beach/bay where we could snorkel and the beach was absolutely beautiful! We didn't see much while we were snorkeling, because it was kind of foggy under the water from stirred up sand. My friend Jason and I were some of the last people to come back in and when we got in we saw them yelling at us and didnt know why until we saw a male sea lion swimming about 5 feet from us.. those are only the most dangerous ones! ha Then we all had lunch at this "restaurant" where we were swatting mosquitos like it was our job.. kind of miserable while we were eating. So we got out of there and took our boat to another part of the island about 20 minutes away to do more snorkeling.. we swam with sharks, like a million sea lions, awesome fish, some rays, a few turtles, and lots of pretty coral. The best snorkeling I have and probably will ever do!

Monday, we took a tour bus, just us 4 and our russian lady friend that was traveling with us on all of our trips, to Los Gemelos, which are 2 huge craters from where there were once 2 volcanos that collapsed! Pretty neat. Then we headed to the airport that is the smallest one I've seen! I tried my first empanada there and it was pretty delicious, but it won't be my favorite food here.

Tuesday, Taylor, Ryan, and I went to the Mercado Artesenal which had about 9 rows (2 rows in each one) full of things to buy.. art, jewelry, clothes, bags.. you name it, they got it! I bought a few pieces of art and I don't really rememeber what else. Then we had lunch at a cute place called Coffee Tree and me and Taylor went back to my house to watch American Gangster. We tried to finish it on Wednesday morning, but didn't have much time, i came back and ate with my family for lunch and my brother Pablo took me to the airport...

to be continued.