Isla San Cristobal on Bikes

This island has an airport and is the jumping off point for people who have booked a cruise. The cruise ships are not the big mega ships as you tend to see in the Bahamas as they limit the number of people landing on some of the smaller islands in the Galapagos. The town on San Cristobel is very much geared to tourists with many souvenir shops, dive shops, restaurants, hostels and Internet cafes.

The Ecuadorian Government is spending a lot of money to revitalize the town putting in new sewers and roads. They have three large wind mills which they say provide 50% of the town's electricity, the rest coming from diesel powered generators.

There are relatively few cruisers here. I count about 15 boats anchored in this harbor scattered amongst the many cruise ships that come in all shapes and sizes and I am sure all ranges of luxury and price.

We don't take our dinghy off its davits as we know it will soon become a sleeping berth for the sea lions. They come by the boat every night checking to see if it is possible to jump up and find a spot on our deck. I am very happy to find that our boat is not 'sea lion friendly'. We prefer to make use of the water taxis that deliver us to the dock for $1.00 apiece

We, being the sometimes naive tourists, decided to rent bikes and cycle as far as the road goes to a small bay with a beautiful beach, stopping on the way to see the crater lake and the giant land tortoises. I say naive, because although it is only 25 kilometers, the trip is mainly on a gravel road and is uphill, sea level to 600 meters, for the first 15 kilometers. The last 10 k's were easy (downhill all the way) and the beach was absolutely gorgeous.

Thankfully, we took a taxi back to town. We were all rather exhausted but nothing that an ice cold beer and homemade pizza wouldn't cure.