May 24, 2026
Well folks, we’ve reached the point of the vacation where the date and day of the week are fuzzy. Vacation success!
It’s actually Sunday, and we know a few people with birthdays today, so while the date didn’t come readily, we were both somehow aware of it.
We woke up sans alarm today, so the light was peaking in before either of us got up and out of bed. Nathan went upstairs to make the coffee, and when I got up, I set about trying to charge my Fitbit, MacGuyver style. Sadly, it took way longer to get it started, so breakfast was delayed and we were a little testy, but we got my Fitbit charged up again.
We decided to go to Las Grietas today, based on the recommendation of the two British gals on our dive yesterday. We set off from our casa with snorkeling gear and our lunch shortly before 9 am. We walked down to the pier, and no sooner did we set foot on the walkway, did a guys hawking tours approach us and say “Las Grietas?”
Nathan, always the sucker for this type of approach, tells the guy yes, and we’re subsequently walked to his tour company office, away from where we are trying to go. We buy the $10 tickets from him, wait while he helps another customer with the same, and then the guy walked all four of us back to the pier and puts us in a water taxi. Honestly, I could have done all of this without his help, but I imagine he gets a commission from having ‘sold’ the tour to us.
We arrive on the other side of the bay with our water taxi ($1), and start the roughly 15 minute walk towards Las Grietas. At some point during the walk, a minder comes and escorts us the rest of the way. Again, I think I could have done all of this without any help.
We get to the office of the park, and the minder attempts to extract another $10 from us, but we showed her the paperwork that demonstrated that we already paid, and that was that.
We joined a bilingual guided tour, and were led into the park. Our guide told us about the mangroves and a few plant and animal species, and also explained how the narrow swimming channel though the lava cliffs was formed.
We were then given free time to swim and snorkel in the cold water. Nathan and I donned our snorkel gear and walked over to the water’s edge. It was pretty cold! I wasn’t sure about getting my whole body in the water, but after we jumped in, we got used to it pretty quickly.
We swam and snorkeled all the way to the other side, observing the fishes and rock cliffs. The water was super clear, although it was dark, and there were some fishes swimming in there. Not sure how they got in and out, but they were in there for us to look at. In the middle of the channel was a ‘pool’ where the water was a lot warmer, due to volcanic heating of the water.
We snorkeled for about 30 minutes, and then got out of the water, aware that we were part of a group, and perhaps we needed to get out of the water. I’m pretty sure we were the last one out of the water, and our guide was completely unbothered by the fact. Once dried off, we hiked a little more on our own before turning around to hike back to the dock and water taxi pick up spot.
It was easy to catch the water taxi back to town, and once on dry land again, we found an open park bench looking out over the water to have our sandwiches.
You must be totally aware of where you are placing your feet, because in the path of travel could be lizards, iguanas, sea lion poop or even a sea lion. We watched pelicans and sea lions wrestle for fisherman scraps and had our lunch. Towards the end of our lunch, a sea lion maneuvered his body onto the concrete pier near us. There was a man sitting on the bench behind us, and after a few minutes, the sea lion decided that was unacceptable, and made his sea lion burping noise, lunged for the man, and very quickly the man got the message and moved off the bench.
After lunch, we decided to walk down to the Charles Darwin center. We joined a guided tour ($10), where we learned all about the Galapagos, Darwin’s exploration and findings, and were able to see the giant tortoise breeding program.
The tour was very informative and long, but the highlight was seeing the giant tortoises towards the end of the tour. They were so close! And they were fighting! Typical male rabble rousing! It was a giant tortoise kerfuffle complete with a tail biting finish!
Nathan and I were watching the shenanigans long after our group walked off, so we quickly rejoined the group in time to see Lonesome George, the Pintas Saddleback tortoise who was the last of his kind. He died in 2012, and now his species is extinct. They looked for a female for a long time before he died, but never found one. Turns out, he had some sort of ejaculation problem, so even if they had found a female, he couldn’t have reproduced naturally anyway.
His semen is saved, frozen somewhere just in case, but his taxidermied body is here for us to look at. Male saddleback tortoises like George have a concave undercarriage to assist with doing the deed, and we looked at his shell, and sure enough, it is indeed shaped in a manner that would assist with procreation.
After all of that learning, standing and walking we needed a pit stop, so after our tour we stopped to grab a happy hour caipirinha.
