Sunday - Exploring San Cristobal

The taxis in San Cristobal are all white extended cab pick-up trucks.

They drive you anywhere in the area for $2.  We got to our hotel and the gate was locked, no one was home.  

The Galapagos Eco-Friendly Hotel

So, we stood like idiots outside for a while until our cab driver went to look for the proprietor (Harry), who also works at a store down the road.  A few minutes later, Harry’s daughter opened the gate and let us in and told us to wait – her dad would be there soon.  Harry arrived a minute or two later laughing and apologizing that he forgot to pick us up at the airport.  I guess we are on island time now!  Harry showed us to his favorite room and explained that we were the first guests he has had in the year since Covid started.  He told us the wifi password but said there may or not may not be a signal.  He showed us the tv but told us that the signal may or may not work.  They just seem to go with it here.  Admittedly, I had been under the impression that tourism had started to pick up, but clearly, they are in the very early stages of recovery.

Our hotel is about a half mile (10 minute) walk from the main drag, the Malecon, straight downhill.  We did a quick unpack and went out exploring and looking for lunch.  My first impressions of San Cristobal, keeping in mind that tourism has been at a virtual standstill for over a year, is that they have been hit hard.  I don’t know what it looked like before, but right now, most shops are closed; most restaurants seem to be closed, and the many construction projects that were underway prior to Covid just came to a screeching halt resulting in many buildings having some level of unfinished construction.  Truthfully, we aren’t sure if that is a result of Covid or if, like in Jamaica, buildings are just constantly being built as money comes in.  But easily half the buildings we saw had rebar sticking up on top.  In our hotel, Harry had started to build a pool and had to stop mid-way through the project when he ran out of money (see picture above).

Most of the stores we passed were small shops that carried the essentials and food.  We passed a “butcher” that just had an enormous tuna on a table and they guy would just chop off chunks for people.  There were two “pharmacies” on our route and a lot of (closed) tourism storefronts.  Easily half of the shops were boarded up or otherwise closed.

We got to the main street – the Malecon – where things were a little busier.  We found a cafe with two outdoor tables.  The menu was written on a chalkboard out front and I tried to go for something I recognized (empanadas are my go-to), but either they didn’t have empanadas or the guy didn’t want to make them, but somehow he convinced us to order something called Bolon.  He tried to explain what Bolon is and I caught a few words like cheese and egg and some kind of meat.  Other than that, it was a mystery.  We tried translating Bolon but got nothing.   In my pre-reading of Ecuador, I learned that Guinea Pig is a common food you find in Quito street markets.  So, naturally I assumed that we had just ordered some type of intestine (bolon sounds like colon) filled with guinea pig meat.  When the plates arrived, there was a yellow ish tennis ball sized thing with little brown chunks, plus a side of some meat in a sauce, and a fried egg.  We carefully taste tested everything – it was delicious – and eventually (through pantomime and limited food knowledge) figured out with the owner that it was a ball of corn and plantains with pork.  Whew. Guinea Pig drama averted for now.

"Bolon"

With half a bottle of water in tow (idiots), we decided to go exploring in the 80+ degree humid heat.  I had a vague idea of a path to some beaches that I wanted to explore, so off we went.  San Cristobal is famous for its abundance of sea lions.  They are everywhere.  There are attempts to keep them on the beach side of fences, but inevitably, they find their way onto the other side.  They lay on benches, in chairs, on the sidewalk, in planters, and under trees.  

Everywhere you go in San Cristobal - there are sea lions

Even though they are kind of stinky and they are constantly barking at each other, I could watch them for hours.  Mating season must have been recently because there are babies everywhere.  Sea lions act very much like dogs, and baby sea lions are like puppies.  And I am a sucker for puppies.  

The hike was easy – the path was mostly paved and easy to follow.  We passed through some pristine beaches and hiked up “Cerro Tijeretas” aka Frigate Bird Hill – which I believe is the highest point in San Cristobal.
  

Statue of Darwin on Frigate Hill

We were rewarded with gorgeous views and a peak at a snorkeling hole that we plan to visit tomorrow. 

Tomorrow's destination

Since we were not really prepared with much water, we didn’t stay long and made our way back to town, grabbed the first Gatorade we could find, and replenished.  Day one is all about getting a lay of the land.  And given how tiny San Cristobal is, it didn’t take long.  We headed back to our hotel to shower and siesta before dinner.

We walked back down the hill toward the Malecon and saw Harry who also works in a store on our street – he informed us that a good marker for orientation is the ONE stop light in all of San Cristobal that is on our street and right in front of his store.  I’m not sure what the light is stopping given there is no traffic anywhere… but who knows what it is like during busy season.  On that note, transportation in town consists primarily of 3 things – the taxi pick-up trucks, bicycles – typically with multiple people on board, and scooters.  The scooters are made up of a more traditional smaller scale scooter that we would see in the US – these generally carry up to a family of 4 with a toddler on the handlebars and an infant precariously dangling on mom’s arms to the side 

Not uncommon scooter sighting

Or these funky little electric scooters with fat tires.  We tried to rent some, but no rentals available.  I’m not sure that we saw a single regular car anywhere.

We found one of the few open restaurants – the Crazy Crab – for dinner.  

As per usual, we were the only people there.  Despite the restaurant name, there didn’t seem to be many crab options available, so Damon got coconut shrimp and being adventurous, I opted for the mystery special of the day – Tonga.  I recognized “pollo”, so at least there would be some chicken.  What arrived can best be described as a square football wrapped in banana leaves and string.  Hmm, the mystery continues!  

Tonga!

I opened it slowly, and unwrapped several layers of banana leaves, finally exposing a huge quantity of rice.  So far so good.  Buried in the rice was fried sweet plantains.  Very good sign as I love sweet plantains.  Then the mystery meat in the middle which upon further inspection, ended up being a chicken leg.  While there was enough rice for about 12 people, the food was delicious.  Guinea pig successfully averted for the second time.  We (I) had also ordered a side dish of fried sweet plantains, so I was in plantain heaven.  Damon’s coconut shrimp were also spectacular.

With nothing else open or available to occupy our time, we started to walk back to our street.  Our street dead ends into the Malecon, and specifically into a small sandy beach that is the evening resting spot for hundreds of sea lions.  There is a small plaza adjacent to the beach and despite the fencing, many of the sea lions get around the fence and just lounge in the plaza.  

Lounging sea lion - no cares

The beach was mostly empty during the day, but by evening, it was completely packed with sea lions.   Since they are technically separated by a fence, we could get within inches of them.  The noises they make consist of loud barking and a weird burping sound and they just yell at each other constantly. 

What makes them so fun to watch is how social they are – they always need to be touching, snuggling, or laying on top of each other.  And, their total lack of social graces in getting around.  To get from one place to another, they just crawl on top of each other, walking on each other’s heads and faces, taking flippers to the face regularly.  When the little ones walk on the big ones, they get barked at and they just waddle away.  And then there are the babies.  The babies were everywhere – some so small that their skin was still wrinkled because they hadn’t grown into it yet.  

Babies!

Video of sea lions

They tried to bark at each other, and they have these tiny little voices.  And there are always babies latched onto moms feeding, so on top of the barking and burping, you can always also hear the suckling.  I get that to locals, they are probably just loud, smelly, annoying nuisances, but to us, they were super fun to watch.

After our evening entertainment, we marched back up our hill for bed.

Click on NEWER POST (Lower Left Corner) to move to next entry.