We pulled into Arequipa, Peru early in the morning on February 17. The place we had made reservations with arranged a taxi to pick us up and brought us to the hostal. It was very convenient and we were able to take advantage of the remaining half of our day exploring the city.
We arrived in Lima yesterday afternoon after a very long hot bus ride. We showered and fell asleep at 8:30PM at the following hostal:
We have arrived back to the mainland after a beautiful trip to the Galapagos Islands. We are currently in Guayaquil, Ecuador and we will be travelling south to Lima (on our way to Buenos Aires through Chile). We are leaving this morning (Thusday, February 14) at 11:30AM and will be arriving in Lima at approximately 3:00PM (Friday, February 15). We have reservations on the following international busline:
During our one-night stop-over in Guayaquil before heading south for Lima, we stayed at the following spotless hostal:
During our last night in the Galapagos Islands, we returned to the following, fairly comfortable and reasonably clean, budget hotel (motel) for $10 each a night.
While visiting the Island of Isabela, we put our bags down at the following hotel.
We are now back on the main Island of Santa Cruz, after three wonderful days on Isabela, the largest of the Islands. This quiet Island, with few tourists, provided us with both activity and tranquility. We stayed in Puerto Villamil, a friendly little town with streets of sand. We spent the first day walking on multi-coloured lava rock around the summit of the second largest crater in the world, Valcan Sierra Negra and a smaller active volcano, Volcan Chico. We traveled by horse for part of the journey, which was Phil´s first time as a cowboy! The next morning we had our most enjoyable snorkel, with sea turtles and rays, and fish of very colour. We spent the afternoon biking, on very well managed paths, by the vast beach front, where the sand is as soft as flour, and by internationally recognized wetlands. The wetlands are dense mangroves with small salt water pools in close proximity to the ocean. It is all so beautiful and humbling.