The other passengers are mostly couples with the one english speaking couple going out of their way to avoid me which makes the tour a little bit lonesome. Apparently the Galapagos is a big honeymoon destination. On Tuesday we went to one of the outer islands called Genovesa where we went to Darwin Bay, Prince Philip’s Steps and saw tonnes of Red-footed Boobies and Frigate birds sitting on eggs and ones with young.

After the dive I walked to one of the beaches and watched the marine iguanas going for a swim. They have really sharp claws to be able to hold onto the rocks while the waves are crashing over them. There were hundreds of marine iguanas sunning themselves. I am also trying to take pictures of Darwin’s Finches (the bird he recognised all had slightly different characteristics and sparked his theory of evolution).

The next day I went out to the airport to meet up with my four day tour. We are in a big old sail ship built in 1895 in Holland. We went to Bachas and saw 2 flamingos, more iguanas, a blue heron and the red sally lightfoot crabs you see everywhere.

I enjoyed the last dive so much that I decided to go again. The first dive was marvelous with more hammerheads, seals, rays, a bunch of white tipped sharks, a large school of barracuda and more turtles. But this time there was six of us to only one dive master who didn’t explain that there would be strong currents so one girl in the group panicked. The second dive was disappointing as the dive master spent a lot of time trying to take a group photo and didn’t seem to know where he was going. A lot of the photos I took when I was snorkeling between dives including the one of the shark.

I had been told that the diving in Galapagos was amazing. The first two dives where so, so and then I lost my mask which was annoying as I have been carrying it from Belize and I was going to use it on the boat tour. And then I did the dive that made the trip all worth while. We went down amidst a wall of fish, saw a school of hammerhead sharks and then at the safety stop was surrounded by a bunch of turtles. We put one male turtle off his stride which allowed the female to escape after which he came and glared at us.

There are two ways to visit Galapagos Islands. Do a tour or do day trips. I am doing four days of each and want to ascertain whether you need to do a boat tour to enjoy the islands. So I did my first day tour to Floreana. The land turtles were cool but overall it was a bit disappointing. I think I just like it better when the weather is nicer.

Second time lucky. Got a flight to the Galapagos. It is cold here. Or at least not warm. I understand it being cold at the higher altitudes near the equator but the equator line runs right through the Galapagos which is obviously at sea level. But apparently a cool current called Humboldt flows from the Antarctica so that the Galapagos has penguins. Because I didn’t know if I was booked on a tour or not I spent the first afternoon just sluffing around the main town of Puerto Ayora finding out the prices of things to do. There are marine iguanas and sea lions are everywhere.

Well it turns that I am not going to the Galapagos Islands today. I got to the airport to find out that my flight was two hours earlier than scheduled even though the airline issued my ticket after the change.

So I went to the hostel where the travel agent is and decided to go into Old Quito. While I was walking around town two middle age guys poured mustard all over my bag and then tried to help me clean it off. I thought that they were just helping me but the whole time they were trying to get me to put my bag and turn away from it, one of them even opened my bag saying I should put my camera in it. Then they poured water down my shorts which I didn’t understand. When they had disappeared I realised they must have been looking for a money belt and that the mustard on my jumper was under where my bag had been. So I headed back to the hostel with wet knickers smelling like a cheap deli to find out that they still haven’t been able to sort out my trip to Galapagos.

I spent all Monday trying to decide whether to go to the Galapagos Islands or not. It is pretty expensive but I don’t know if fate will bring me this way again. So I spent the day going around travel agents in Quito and managed to find a fairly cheap lastminute deal. Whoowhoo, I am off to see the Galapagos Islands tomorrow. I don’t know if I will have internet access while I am out there but tune back in around the 10th of August for hopefully some stunning photos.

Alexander the dutch rider (his website) is also in Quito so we decided to met up and ride to the middle of the earth (equator). Turns out there is two places. One with a monument and the other with a museum and we went to the wrong one. Then we went up to Otovalo to see the indigenous market which wasn’t one. Tried to take some back roads to the equator museum and got lost along this gravel road in the fog. Then had to ride back into Quito and my headlight gave way and I had to ride in with my lights on full beam.

On Sunday on of the local riders Luigi and his wife Karine invited me out to do some back roads to one of the Ecuador volcanoes. I realised in El Salvador that I wasn’t able to off road ride but I haven’t done much off tarmac riding so I was looking forward to testing myself and my bike. We did some awesome roads with some really tricky bits. A great day with lovely people – a big thanks to Luigi and Karine.