The salt marsh and the bar enroute Las Grietas.
On Friday afternoon I headed to "Las Grietas", by first crossing to the bay with the $.60 water taxi, and then walking past the mangroves over volcanic rock to a deep grotto of rock. The deep clear water had an occasional large snapper swimming through it, which would vanish once someone jumped from the 40-80ft rock ledges into the water below. I met up again with a tour guide called Darwin, who is a great guy - we played soccer at Tortuga Bay together last weekend. On the way back I started talking to two other people, Shaun and Alejandra, who were also strangers, and we ended up having impromptu adventures. These started by having a caipirinha at the bar and then being invited by the bar owner into his house - an expat with a crazy sense of humor. His humble abode had the most impressive view of the moonrise over the water and we danced with family for a few hours and tried homebrewed vodka, before he ferried us back to town in his own skiff.
Pre-jump adrenaline.
After a night of dancing in the town's one and only club, Bongo's, Shaun and I decided to go camping at Garrapatero. Shaun was an investment banker on Wallstreet just 6 months ago, but he "capitalized" on the real estate downturn and became a happy go-lucky vagabond cruising South America. Everyone told him it was impossible to get a cargo ship to the Galapagos these days - but after 1 weeks of pleading he managed to get a spot above the banana crates, where ants bit his lip. He said it was pretty aweful, second only to spending 2 weeks in the Bolivian jungle with a native guide having a "real Amazon experience" - eating worms, having no mosquito nets, hunting with a bow and arrow. I was proud of Shaun.
Playa de Garrapatero and surroundings.
Playa de Garrapatero was a scenic beach 30 minutes by taxi from the town. It was full of people on tour when we arrived but they all left. We were an absolute hit with the big crowd of Ecuadorian schoolteachers who were here on a work vacation - they wanted to take pictures with us and our tent, at least 20 times. We were sad that the flamingos weren't around in the lagoon area; but we had an excellent time regardless.
A crowd of Ecuadorian schoolteachers overtook our campsite.
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