03/06/2019 – Travel day, San Cristobel, Galapagos to Quito, Ecuador

We woke up to a knock at the door - some biscuits had been left outside the room for us. As the other guests had been packing to go home they had been giving us biscuits and coffee and tea to pack to keep us going on our backpacker budget. This week we have eaten like kings at the all you can eat buffet meals (all you CAN eat not all you want to eat!) We got our bags together and then went upstairs for the final breakfast. All the staff were whizzing around to prepare the boat for the next lot of guests, but we managed to give them a little squeeze goodbye. At 0900 we hopped onto the dinghy and went ashore, and said a final goodbye to the sealions playing in the water.

Fair well Grand Majestic.

We got the bus to the museum, which explained the history of the Galapagos islands, then went by bus to the airport, where our luggage had been taken for us. It really is luxurious going on holiday like this, everything is organised and done for you! We checked in and got our boarding passes before getting the bus back to the town. We wandered around the shops – Josh and I bought wide brimmed Galapagos sun hats as a souvenir and then went for some lunch. We ran out of time so we got the food put into lunchboxes then hopped back onto the bus to the airport. We went through security, which was pretty relaxed. I completely forgot about the huge bottle of water in my bag – they didn’t seem to mind though! Then we got the connecting Avianca flights from San Cristobel to Quito via Guayaquil.

Fair well Galapagos!

It was a quick journey, and was only a domestic so everything was fairly swift. We picked up our luggage and said our farewells to the rest of our group. It is quite funny when you go from spending five days with a group of strangers on a boat and then say goodbye and wander if you will ever cross paths again. We have all connected on social media so I guess we can see what other adventures each other go on! We got met at the airport by Manuel, our hostel host, and driven back to KillaLullu hostal – where we had stayed prior to the cruise. We have the same room again! It is kind of bitter sweet, nice to be somewhere familiar, but also brings back bad memories of the camera situation. We dropped our laundry off to the laundrette next door, booked in and had a cereal dinner before unpacking and settling into our room again. We still feel like we are at sea swaying back and forth! We have everything on charge and are planning on an early night with a bit of tv in bed.