Our boat left dock at 6am, leaving us with another fantastically early start. We tried to meet Roger and his daughter Julia to take a bus/truck/open bus thing with wooden planks and no windows, but the guy was still asleep, so we ended up walking half way and catching a taxi the rest of the way (Jeremy walked all the way because he didn't want to wait for the bus thing).

Once at the dock, we ran in to the slightly panicky moment of finding our names on the Passenger Manifesto. Luckily, this was merely because neither Jeremy nor the sailor man could read the crazily cursive handwriting. Two hours later, we were in Santa Cruz - a very different experience compared to Capitan Froyd a few days ago! The four of us topped up our highly depleted and insufficient funds, Jay and Liz found a hostel while Jeremy and I returned to the Cafeteria to steal wifi and search for a cheaper option of our own and to have a spot of breakfast. Nothing we found online was sufficient enough, so instead we said our goodbyes, finally added them on facey so we could find them again later, and head out to find a hostel ourselves. Countless times of asking "¿Tienes un habitacion matrimonial? y ¿Cuanto?" we found ourselves a huge room for $35, a slight discount from $20 each.

Although we planned to meet the others again at the Charles Darwin Research Station, we both crashed and didn't leave the room again for a couple of hours - probably for the best since it was so hot out. Eventually, we did leave and walk up to the station. It was still quite hot, and it was a long walk, but the promise of more giant tortoises was enough to keep us going. While most of the station was for research (fair enough), the parts that are open to the tourists were quite interesting - we walked strategically behind tour groups to hear Lonesome George, breeding programs, land iguanas, and birds - we saw so many finches! This is also the day that the lizard game started - Jeremy stopping to point out every. single. lava. lizard thht scurried by.

Our walk back to the hostel was filled with numerous pit stops at souvenir shops, an iced coffee cafe called OMG!, and eventually dinner (a ginomous calzone for me and a slice of pizza for Jeremy).