We were very excited to go to the Galapagos and wanted to make sure we got all the highlights without paying $8000 per person to be on a giant ship. There was some splurging, some saving, and ultimately an amazing adventure.
You can only fly to the Galapagos Islands from two airports, Quito and Guayaquil, both in Ecuador. If you get on a flight in Quito, it will stop briefly for about 45 minutes to pick up more passengers in Guayaquil. The route from the US to Panama via Guayaquil to the islands was cheaper, so we did that and spent about $500/person. However, in January of 2024, we did get a little nervous as Guayaquil became a city dominating headlines for all the wrong reasons. After determining whether we wanted to spend thousands of dollars to change our flights, we decided to keep our initial flights through Guayaquil. We landed in Guayaquil at about 11:30pm and very quickly got through immigration and customs. Once we got outside, while looking for our shuttle bus to the Holiday Inn by the airport we were greeted by many coyfish in a pond outside the airport! The night stay at the Holiday Inn was great and I would highly recommend staying there if you find yourself needing a place to stay by Guayaquil airport.
The official currency of Ecuador is the US dollar, which makes it very convenient for travellers from the US. Typically, we never travel with cash. However, for this trip we knew that cash is queen on the Galapagos, with many places not taking credit cards. We made sure to withdraw plenty of cash.
The Galapagos islands have a lot of different tourist taxes. The first of these was a $20/person fee we paid at Guayaquil airport. Then, the moment we landed at GPS airport (on Baltra Island) we paid an additional $100/person entry tax (which must be paid in cash). We were actually lucky to only be paying $100/person, as from August 1st this fee will be doubling to $200/person! Once we paid the fee, the person asked us whether we wanted an optional Galapagos stamp in our passport, which of course we did want!
Once we got through security and customs, we waited in line to get on a $5 bus. The airport is on Baltra Island, but there is essentially nothing to do or see on this island other than an airport. The only way to get to the more built up island where the sights and hotels are (Santa Cruz) is by first taking that bus and then getting on a $1 ferry.
Once you get off the ferry, you can either get on another $5/person bus which takes you on the approx. 1 hour journey to Puerto Ayora (where all the hotels are) or a $25 total taxi ride which takes you straight to your hotel and takes about 40 minutes. We splurged here and decided to take the taxi.
We stayed at Mainao which we booked only the night before, for about $75 and it was great! It had a cool mosaic pattern all throughout the hotel. We then ventured to Tortuga Bay, a free beach right before it closed. There are two parts of the beach. One for only surfers because the seas are rough and another completely calm beach where you can swim. Lots of people bring snorkel gear, but we did not. We were though very pleasantly surpised to see a baby hammerhead shark right at the shore – it was really exciting. At about 4:30pm they promptly started to clear out the beach. We then walked back, grabbed dinner and went to bed early because we had an early (for us!) start to the day. We woke up at 8:04am, packed up our stuff and headed to Las Grietas. Something weird about Santa Cruz Island, is that checkout is at 10am, although check in is at 12.
Las Grietas used to be free, but now you need a guide (which costs $10/person), presumably to reduce overcrowding. The tours leave every 30 minutes and we ended up on the 9:30am tour. It was a short hike from the guide stop to get to Las Grietas and I would describe to similarly to a cenote in Mexico or the Dominican Republic. There was a nice dock where we took some cool pictures before we took the plunge. It was cold, albeit refreshing. We saw some people bring snorkel gear, but because of the brackish water in Las Gritas, it is not a hotspot for wildlife. After a quick dip we made our way back to the hotel, and saw some seals on the docks on our way back! We then left for our next destination, Isabela Island.
Typically, people take a ferry to Isabela Island. But, Jack gets sick on boats, so we decided to take a propellor plane. This was another splurge. The plane ride cost $140/person and only includes 15lbs of luggage so we also had to pay an overage fee that was quoted as $88 ($2/lb). But I looked at the guy who quoted us $88 and pointed at my husband and said “look how skinny he is, he’s so skinny, you should lower the price of our bag overage because he doesn’t weight that much” and then he did! So we ended up paying $60 instead of $88, which is still absurd, but better than $88.
We took a short beautiful flight and landed on Isabela Island. We then had to pay another $10/person entry tax. We then got on a $2 taxi to our hotel. We again booked the hotel the night before, and when we got there they said we know you have a booking, but unfortunately we’re sold out, there was a mistake in our system, but we’re going to upgrade to a better room in a different hotel with an ocean view – how exciting! We then wanted to book all of our excursions. It’s important to note that the best deals will be on the island and not booked in advance, because you can negotiate with cash. We ended up paying $140/person to do both the 5 hour Los Tuneles tour as well as the shorter Tintorela tour. As of day 2, we have not been sunburnt.
We took a rest once we got to our hotel, which didn’t leave a lot of time for exploring. But we did manage to see in the center of the city, a place called Poza de los Flamingos that is filled with Flamingos!
The next day, we woke up and prepared for our first tour, Los Tuneles. Though we had an incredible time, we would caution buying this tour because you will get a similar experience in half the time (and less than half the price!) if you only do the Las Tintoreras tour instead.
On the Los Tuneles tour, when snorkelling underwater, we got to see sea turtles, seahorses and one white-tipped shark. On land, we saw, blue-footed boobies, some even doing a mating dance, and Galapagos penguins. After a great day of snorkelling, we had dinner and went to bed.
The next tour was Las Tintoreras. That tour was phenomenal. It took half the time of the Los Tuneles tour and we saw a tonne of wildlife. Instead of just one white-tipped shark, we saw about 50! We were also extremely close to the wildlife, including turtles, sharks, sealions and I even had a penguin swim right next to me. I highly recommend doing the Las Tintoreras tour.
We then took some time to rest, and went out to the beach. We were fortunate because our hotel is right outside the Playa Villamar beach. So we went out and spent some time there. We then took a short walk to Concha de Perla and back and then had dinner.
We woke up on a mission. We had yet to see a Galapagos giant tortoise up close. They live basically forever (150 years or more) and weight 300 lbs. From our research, we knew that these large tortoises are found on the way to the Wall of Tears (El Muro de las Lágrimas), so we started off our hike. It’s about a 6km hike to the Wall of Tears, but we only wanted to see the tortoises, so once we got our tortoise fill, we turned around.
We were a little disheartended at first because we walked a fair amount and hadn’t seen any tortoises. However, we got to a point called the Camino de las Tortugas and within about 3 minutes we saw our first giant tortoise. A couple more minutes down the walk and we got up close and personal with the second tortoise. It was just chilling in its shell; likely scared of us. But, we were able to get our tortoise fill, so we headed back to the hotel to get ready for our flight to our final island, San Cristobal. We then took a flight with Emetebe, where we flew from Isabela, directly to San Cristobal. We landed and explored the town. While exploring, we bought a tour to Kicker Rock. It wasn’t ideal because part of the tour included staying 2 hours at a beach, which we thought was overkill, but the other part of the tour is going to Kicker Rock, where you can see Hammerhead sharks if you’re lucky, along with other amazing marine life.
Because in shoulder season the groups were small and our tour was not full. In our group, there were eight people: five were divers, and three were snorkelers. It was almost as if we had a private tour with a bonus person. Part of the tour includes going to a private beach, which Jack and I weren’t really enthralled with, so we stayed on the boat. One problem with snorkeling tours is you can’t just get a tour to Kicker Rock, the tour operators don’t do that. Instead they take you to Kicker Rock +1-2 other excursions. Therefore, if you want to go to Kicker Rock, be sure that you’re prepared for an all day experience.
When booking the Kicker Rock tour I came in with high expectations to see Hammerheads, but unfortunately the only shark we saw was a black tip shark. The Galapagos and Hammerhead sharks evaded us this time. Our guide Told us that the best time to see them is January to March. However, Memorial Day does not fall in January to March and did not align with the time I get off at work. Next time the sharks and I will have to talk beforehand about arranging our schedules.
We had an intense swim because the currents were difficult to navigate. If you’re not a strong swimmer this tour might be more difficult. Though we didn’t see the sharks it was still an amazing snorkeling experience. We saw so many different schools of fish, sea turtles, and we some of the Smaller marine life up close near the rock such as sea urchins starfish etc.
After we got off the boat we took a shower and took a nap because the snorkeling was strenuous. We then explored the town and there were a lot of food options. I hate to say it because I love supporting the local economy, but we were captivated by a beautiful IHG hotel. We wanted to have an upscale dinner, which understandably, is virtually impossible on the other islands. We investigated the dining scene at the hotel, and found it had a small restaurant called Darwin’s secret cove. We decided we would eat dinner there and it was honestly as if this chef was a Michelin starred chef. We ended up eating there two nights in a row, And it was $18 which is pretty insane for the islands, but insanely cheap if I’m comparing it to an American city.
Our last day we decided to go to the Charles Darwin interpretive center and read a little bit more about the Galapagos history before catching our flights. We highly recommend going to the Galapagos (maybe not during the time that we went so you could see some hammerhead sharks. We ended up seeing everything that we wanted to whether that’s the birds including the blue footed boobies, sea turtles, White tip and black tip sharks as well as a baby hammerhead and some cool fish. It was definitely the vacation we needed