To Quito and onto Galapagos

Up early Friday morning to the sound of light rain but it clears by the time we have breakfast at 6:30 and we are on the river boat by 7:15 having said our goodbyes to the staff at Minga lodge that have been so wonderful to us over the past week. We board the bus and begin our 8 hour journey through winding gravel roads and uphill highways. We stop again at the pizza place in the middle of nowhere and the food is as good as before except this time we get to eat in the restaurant. It's good to have a stretch and get out of the bus. We hit the outskirts of Quito at 4:30 during rush hour so it took us 90 to get to the core where we were staying .

We head to the crafters market for a quick trip thru the many stalls and merchants. It's almost overwhelming with all the options and many buy sweaters,jackets and other souvenirs in a very rushed but fun 45 mins. We head over to the hotel, drop off luggage and head to supper at a restaurant by the main square . This evening is our final time with Hillary and Lilly. Words of appreciation are exchanged, plans made for more Me to We support events upon our return and a video montage is shared that Hillary and Lilly have made of our time. Again lots of tears are shed and folks head to bed as we must be up at 5 to catch our flight to Galapagos .

We arrive to a moderate day just before noon and our met by our new guides for this leg of our adventure . - Isabella and Farydde. We get settled into our new hotel, have lunch and then head to the Darwin interpretive centre where we see the work being done try and reestablish the tortoise population that was once at 250 000 n these islands and has dropped to less than 16000. One species had only 14 left when they began the hatchery. Since that time they have raised the population to almost 60 000. 4 species are now extinct . We see lizards, iguanas and birds. We end our day with a bit of shopping in this quaint little town, enjoy a lovely dinner and head back to the hotel for an early nights as our day again starts early with a 2 hour boat ride at 7 am tomorrow morning.