Galapagos, Day 16, Afternoon: Not the Pitts!

Ecuador Trip: Day 16
 
Galapagos Cruise: Day 11

If you’ve been following my Galapagos posts, by now you should be getting a sense of just how much activity gets packed into one day. It wasn’t enough that we went swimming in the morning, visited amazing caves, went snorkeling (or didn’t go, depending on one’s nausea issues) on Day 16, no, we had to top it off in the afternoon with a steep hike.

If lounging around on the sundeck all day is your idea of a good time, don’t visit the Galapagos. Or, you could visit and stay back on the boat while your fellow travelers go off exploring. But where’s the fun in that?

Swimming at Witch Hill last post (link if you’re too lazy to scroll down), we saw beautiful white beaches. In the afternoon, we visited Pitt Point, which is the northernmost point of San Cristobal. The beaches at Pitt Point are a beautiful, squish-between-your-toes brown:

Harry informed us that we were going to hike up to the top of this little hill, from where we would get a great view of the ocean.

My Liege, beginning the ascent:

By this time it began to occur to me that maybe, just maybe, I wasn’t going to gain weight on this trip. That maybe, just maybe, I would lose a couple of pounds. Another bonus of the Galapagos! You can eat like a pig and be assured you are going to exercise, swim, and sweat it all off.

The rock formations were really quite spectacular, and I’d have to say that was the big difference between Week 1 and 2 of our cruise. I still couldn’t choose which of the two weeks I would recommend if you only had one week to spare, because they are so incredibly different. But if you’re into geology, probably our Week 2 (the Southern and Central islands) would be the week to choose. But then you’d miss the beauty of the Northern Islands and the wildness of Fernandina and Isabela. It’s really an impossible choice, but if choose you must, here’s a nice breakdown of the various islands.)

If I were the accommodating sort, I might also choose this moment to plug our naturalist guide’s blog. It’s filled with tons of information about the Galapagos. Check out the swimming with sea lions video in this post!

Okay, that was an aside. Where was I?

Ah, yes, Pitt Point.

View of The Cormorant from where I almost lost my hat:

Wondering what sort of shoes to take on a Galapagos cruise? Good hiking runners and a pair of Keens or similar:

For Pete’s sake, whose dangling shoelaces are those? Who can’t be bothered to tuck in her shoelaces like everyone else?

Beats me.

That evening, we enjoyed a very social time, because the following day we would lose two of the “couples” from Week 2, a mother/daughter pair and a couple who chose to only identify themselves as “Dick and Jane” (yeah, like we believed those were really your names!). Both pairs of travelers had embarked on the Cormorant along with the other Week 2 passengers. However, they were on a 4-day/3-night cruise (which one could combine with a Fernandina/Isabela week-long cruise, if one so chose).

But the good news…we would once more get fresh victims!