Mathilde and I were up early to make the most of our last bit of our time on the Galapagos. Carly however had decided to extend her trip and become a dive master whilst taking the course in the Galapagos for a further 2 weeks. After a brief breakfast Mathilde and I headed to Las Grietas.

Las Grietas is a canyon 12m high and about 4m wide where the sea water floods in. It is where 2 tectonic plates meet and have created this canyon that runs for several hundred meters out to the sea. We took a water taxi to the path entrance and walked for 20 minutes until we arrived there around 7.30am! We had the whole place to ourselves which was cool as it was so peaceful.

We were told the night before by Tito that we had to jump from the top of the cliff into the sea below. After an initial swim to check it all out Mathilde climbed up half way and jumped in with no trouble. Next up it was my turn and after we had both completed the half way stop it was time to reach the top at 12m.

I was very kindly volunteered to go first this time and thus started the long climb up! At one point around 11m i was faced with a large boulder where i could not find a point to hold on to or get my feet up high enough. The solution in this instance was to belly crawl like a penguin on ice on to the top of the boulder and with it the top of the cliff.

I would like to say after an initial look and 10 seconds pause i jumped straight away. In reality 12m is a ruddy long way and it took me a while to pluck up the courage to jump! I landed with an almighty splash that seemed to sting every part of skin i have, but it was great fun nonetheless and whats more it meant next it was Mathilde´s turn and i got to watch instead.

In fairness to Mathilde she made light work of the cliff including the boulder i elegantly scaled. However, at the top she had second thoughts about the jump too. After a bit of gentle mocking and persuasion she jumped too and came up somehow with a saw bum!

Once recovered we went for a swim through the gorge before it was time to head back, pick up our things and say our goodbyes to Tito and co. We caught a taxi to the airport and just like that it was over!

We landed in Guayacil 2 hours later and having decided connecting flights to Quito were too expensive we caught a local overnight bus for 8 hours instead to the capital!