This morning Melissa got up early and headed into town. She's been frustrated at not being able to blog - held up by the fact that we took a ton of video footage in the Amazon, and the You Tube videos are taking forever to load - even at the fastest internet cafe in town. The hotel internet is so slow its silly. But we've learned this is because the only part of town wired for fast internet is right in the port. Where the hotel is, high speed isn't even available. So she spent a good part of the day waiting for video loads, and finally just leaving the laptop behind the desk at the internet cafe while we went to see the sights. Fortunately the laptop was still there when she returned, and the video had finally finished uploading. Whew.
The fish market was in full swing when she reached the town. All kinds of fish were for sale along with tons of lobsters.
The pelicans and sea lions seemed un-bothered by the tourists coming to the fish market to take pictures. They were just hoping for handouts when the fish were cleaned.
In the afternoon we hopped in a cab to see some of the Island of Santa Cruz. First stop was to see the volcanic craters here on the island. A couple of them collapsed leaving giant cauldrons. The landscape here is strange. Much more barren and desert like than we expected. Though there are places like this that are green, but still somewhat sparse and strange looking.
Then it was time to go see a giant tortoise preserve. There are tons of tortoises everywhere.
Apparently grass is their favorite food.
The tortoise preserve also had some lava tubes, one of which we were able to go down into.
After that it was time for beers and food.
On our way back we spotted a bunch of iguanas hanging out on the sidewalk. They blend into the lava rock bricks so well that you might well step on one if you aren't careful.
