Day 44 Thursday, April 18th Goodbye Galapagos.

Up at 6.00am for a quick taxi to the Santa Cruz Island bus station. ($1). Then a 45 minute bus ride ($1.60 each) to the port on the north side of the island. Then a $1 ferry ride to Baltra Island (where the Galapagos Airport is located) for our flight back to mainland Ecuador at Quito’s new airport. Then a 90 minute bus ride from the new Quito Airport to Quito’s old airport ($8 each) then a taxi ride to the Quito’s bus station ($5). We weren’t sure where to go and so I struck up a conversation with my bus neighbor (Jose is an Ecuadorian lawyer and speaks a little English) and he ends up sharing the taxi with us and directing the driver for us. We get to the bus station around 8.00pm and, once again, seem to be the only tourists and non Spanish-speaking people around. We manage to find the bus we need and buy the $2.20 each tickets for the two hour journey to Otavalo (“Otobalo”) up near the Ecuadorian border with Columbia. The bus pulls out at 8.20pm and so we arrive at Otovalo around 10.30pm and manage to get a taxi ($5) to take us to La Luna, our hostel for the night. It’s a 30 minute taxi ride up into the dark mountains along farm tracks. We had called ahead to make our reservation here since it was recommended by fellow travelers that we met a few weeks ago. This place is very beautiful. It’s owned by Kevin (from Wiltshire England) and his Ecuadorian wife Tamara. We have a super room ($42/night including breakfast) with a wood fire and the fire is lit for us and the room soon becomes warm and welcoming. It’s been almost 18 hours of travelling (on most legs we are the only tourists) but at 11.00pm at night we are offered a pizza and red wine by the staff at La Luna. We are the only guests tonight but many more are booked for tomorrow.