Isla San Cristobal is the capitol of the Galapagos Islands and has about 6,000 inhabitants. It's really a small fisherman's town though, which is a nice change from the commercialization of Santa Cruz. We easily changed our return flights to be out of San Cristobal and for a day later (with no change fee if you can imagine that!) so we don't have to take a boat ferry back to Santa Cruz's airport.

The first day on San Cristobal we hired a taxi to take us to a few sites. He first drove us through the highlands, telling us about the local flora and fauna (in Spanish so who knows what vital information was lost in translation). We then hiked up to a fresh water lake that is in the crater of a volcano. The backdrop was a fairly clear day where we could make out Isla Espanola in the distance. We were hoping to visit Isla Espanola from San Cristobal but apparently there is only one agency here that has permission to set foot on the island and they were booked out through November. It was a bummer but we got over it. OK, so back to our ride - after the fresh water lake we visited a tortoise center where we saw not only the adult tortoises but also the breeding center where they had little ones the size of your palm.

The second day was a trip out to Kicker Rock. This is a small island about 45 minutes by boat from the harbor and it juts up sharply from the ocean floor. The cliffs are super steep and about the only animal that can use them are birds for nesting. Kent and Charles went scuba diving through the split in Kicker Rock while Jenny and I alternated snorkeling and entertaining Ryan. The waters were crystal clear and full of marine life, much better than the diving on Santa Cruz. Charles and Kent saw hammerheads, white tip sharks, an octopus, some eels, turtles, sea lions and of course schools of fish. Amazingly the snorkeling was just as exciting.

San Cristobal has a new walkway along their waterfront which we visited every night. Fifty or so sea lions lounge in the sand here, barking to each other. There were a dozen or so baby sea lions which were absolutely adorable. They clumsily tried to work their way over rocks to track down their mothers but it was their puppy dog eyes and cocked heads that made any onlooker exclaim, "Ahhhh, how cute!". Despite our pleading, Charles and Kent kept repeating to Jenny and me that we could not have a baby sea lion back in Portland.

Our time in the Galapagos was great, we saw lots of marine life and quite a few of the islands. Amazingly, Kent left without purchasing an "I Love Boobies" t-shirt, which depicts a Blue Footed Booby bird on it, good thing we have pictures of the boobies - see photo above.