Bottoms in Ecuador (Our FIRST visitors) - Galapagos: Day 3

The next morning we started on a small island off the east coast of Santa Cruz called Isla Plaza Sur.  The island was tiny and the rocky shore was completely covered in sea lions (gratuitous sea lion photos to follow) when we pulled up in the boat.  (Some were even blocking our path!)  The island had a plant Andres called 'Galapagos Carpet' that came in green, orange and red.  In addition to the plants and sea lions we saw birds and iguanas.  It was a beautiful hike with a ton to see.

friend blocking our path on the way in!

the sea lions were all hanging out on the rocks

being adorable is exhausting

lots of cactus trees and Galapagos carpet

I thought the Galapagos carpet looked like coral on land.

Here are the boys walking along.  This gives you an idea of what the other side of the island looked like!

lots of iguana friends!  This guy was hanging out on the cliff

At one point this iguana guy was blocking our path

the Bottoms with napping friend

This guy was too adorable for words and hanging out just on the other side of our marked path

so Kels and I snapped a quick pic with him

as we were leaving we got to see this group of iguanas all going after a piece of cactus fruit
at one point there were like 8 of them tearing into it!

In the afternoon we arrived on Santa Fe island.  This is an uninhabited island in the Galapagos!  The island was very dry and had a lot of iguanas.  Andres also pointed out a tree whose sap smelled like church incense - kind of crazy!  After the hike we had the chance to do some snorkeling.  Some of the group saw sea turtles, but we missed them (have no fear...it wasn't our last opportunity to see some though!).  We did see some rays and a snake/eel.

iguana buddy

hanging out by the cactus 

This was the tree that smells like incense.  It is called Palo Santo.

Here we are on Santa Fe.

we saw this mama sea lion and her pup on the way into the water

It was New Year's Eve and Andres suggested we take a bit of a detour to Puerto Baquerizo so that we could ring in the new year with some fireworks.  The change meant a 5-6 hour sail during dinner which didn't sit the best with either of the Cabezas.  It meant a short dinner and long nap for us, but it meant getting to go to shore and see some celebration for New Year's.  Javier and I were also hoping to see some muñecos.  Muñecos are paper mache dolls, ranging in size from about a foot to six, that Ecuadorians burn on new years.  The idea is that they are burning away any bad stuff from the last year in preparation of the new one.

landed on San Cristobal to ring in 2-0-1-5

beers and cards before fireworks

5 minutes to go

stage was set up for music and the countdown!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

and we did find muñecos!  The people in the town brought their dolls and threw them on the fires started in the streets

it was pretty intense seeing these huge flames go up all over the street

when they died down a bit we each took a turn jumping over the piles (I forget why, but it's part of the tradition too...)

Starting off 2015 in the Galapagos, jumping over burning dolls felt like the right start to anything!  It was totally worth the detour and seasick dinner to get here and enjoy the festivities.