We arrived at the Galapagos airport which is on a tiny little island called Baltra, you then have to take a bus to the ferry, then take the ferry which is about 10 mins if that and then either get another bus or a taxi into town. When we arrived onto Santa Cruz we planned to get the bus but the taxi drivers were saying that a) it had stopped running and b) it was dearer than we had thought. All of which was complete lies, luckily we met a couple of Canadian guys one of which spoke reasonble Spanish and they knew that the bus would be running so we just waited.

It felt like we hadn´t had a decent meal for days (even in Guayaquil my meal was disgusting, how can you call spicy fish, "spicy" when it´s covered in a creamy sauce?) so we decided to treat ourselves to a platter for 2, tuna steaks, steak, sauasage, chicken, calamari, Octupus and probably loads more, with chips and salad and a beer. It was AMAZING!!!!

Puerto Ayora where we were staying was really commercialised, the restaurants were all really fancy and really expensive so we´d promised ourselves that was our only treat of the week and we pretty much stuck to that.

On our first day we went to the Charles Darwin centre which was a bit disappointing as everything was shut, we then went took a water taxi over to Los Tunnels which is basically a huge crevice that you can swim through, it was pretty packed but pretty cool at the same time, the water was freezing! After that I decided we would go to the beach at Tortuga bay, I say I decied because Casson really didn´t want to go, it was a 45 minute walk and it was BOILING!!!!!! I have never heard him complain so much, usually it´s me, so to be fair he must have been tired.

When we got there it was totally worth it, white sand, cyrstal blue water and loads of iguana´s and other wildlife just roaming around on the beach, plus the waves were pretty big so Casson was more than happy once he was in the water.

That night we went to find street food street (there´s always a main street that sells cheap food), this street was packed with places selling all types of seafood, fish, lobster, prawns etc, we ended up right at one end that was a lot quieter and there were only locals in (always a good sign). I sampled the local sea food and Casson had a huge mixed grill.

On our second day we took a ferry over to another island called Isabella for 2 nights. The day we got there we rented bikes and went for a bike ride along the coast, it was the best $20 we have spent. On the way, just in the middle of the road were huge tortoises (not as big as the ones we were to see a few days later), Iguana´s, 1000´s of blue footed boobies (birds), Pelicans, it was absolutely amazing. On the bike path there were lots of stops to see things like lava tunnels, a site were the iguana´s were nesting and on the beach the pelicans were literally gliding over our heads and then diving into the sea to catch fish. Isabella was a much nicer island than Puerto Ayora, more simplistic and no fancy restaurants etc.

Day 2 on Isabella we went on a snorkelling trip to Los Tunells which is lots of lava rock formations from where the lava hit the sea, it´s pretty cool to see. When we were snorkelling we saw turtles, sting rays, a seahorse and a couple of small sharks hiding in caves, I even went into the entrance to the cave to have a look which is brave for me as I´m a massive scardy cat normally! Casson was all over the video footage which we´ll upload as soon as possible. On the boat on the way back we passed some huge mantarays, they were about 6ft wide, one of the guys wanted to get in the water with them but the Captain wouldn´t stop, Casson was almost over the side, he was dying to get in!

After the trip we went to the beach for a bit and there were seals and penguins in the water and loads of iguanas on the beach, not a bad way to sapend an afternoon

The next day we headed back to Puerto Ayora on the 6am ferry, normally the Captain invites the young girls to sit up on the top with him but at 6am pickings must have been slim as Casson and I got to go up top which was brilliant.

In Peurto Ayora there´s a stand in town and all the fisherman bring their daily catches there and they sell it throughout the day, in the evening it turns into an open air restaurant and they cook the fish. This was one of our favourite places, we´d go down in the morning and buy fresh tuna for tea that night, $2.50 for a 1lb of tuna, this was the only cheap thing on the island! We´d then sit there for ages and watch them bringing the fish in, when they gut them they throw the scraps to the sea lions and pelicans that are literally stood right next to them. We actually watched a sea lion and a pelican facing off more than one time! Also, they are all really greedy, there was a pelican who took a massive piece of fish but wasn´t able to swallow it fullly, it was bulging in it´s neck and the tail was sticking out of it´s mouth, we honestly thought it was going to choke to death until it completely regurgitated the whole thing!

We wanted to do another snorkelling trip to Kicker Rock on San Cristobal but it was $175 and we just couldn´t justify paying that just for a few hours snorkelling. Apparently the government had just put the taxes up on the island so a few months ago it would have been $90 and ina few months it will probably be $200.

We decided just to do things that we could do on our own so we had another day at Tortuga bay and we also took a trip to see the giant tortoises in the North of the Island. They were absolutely unreal, they´re so big! We couldn´t understand how they could possibly move with that huge shell on their back. We soon realised that tortoises hiss at you when they are afraid but that´s about it. I had my picture talen next to a huge one but just as it was having a number 2, let me tell you, it didn´t smell of roses!

One afternoon we had seen kids jumping into the sea off the side of a wall so Casson decided he was going to do it, we got a few beers and went and sat down by the water. He built up the courage to do it and I´d promised to help him out if he needed it (it was a bit of a climb up the wall). So in he goes and then he tries to get out and he couldn´t, we hadn´t realised that the tide was out so it was even harder to get out than when we had been watching the kids do it. So there he is struggling and asking me to help him and honestly now, I would have helped but I just couldn´t stop laughing, there he was with his arm raised saying "help me" and i´m just belly laughing which didn´t go down well at all. Just as he found some holes to put his hands into to pull himself up a local guy came over to help him but he was already out, this was the icing on the cake for him and I was in big trouble!

We absolutely loved it here, the wildlife was just unbelievably cool and all around you.

General Points

1) We forgot to tell you that the disgusting green hat has gone, it was like a bloody boomerang, he left it on a bus and a woman chased us down to give it back to us but eventually he left it somewhere and neither of us realised (this made me very happy)

2) We´ve both formed an unhealthy addiction to coca cola, we drink it all the time and not the diet variety, we´ve decided we need to cut ourselves off, maybe just one more first though?

3) We´ve also grown an unhealthy addiction to the golden arches, neither of us eat McDonalds very often at home but whenever we see the arches these days we both just look at each other as if to say "shall we?"