We chose to stay in Galapagos for one month because the cost of an Airbnb is the same price for two weeks or one month. The one-month discount on Airbnb can be significant.
Island living is not easy for us. The food is expensive, and the grocery options are limited. We paid $19.95 for a large JIF peanut butter. You can find traditional Ecuadorian fare for $5 for lunch and $7 for dinner, but many restaurants in Santa Cruz have entrees ranging from $12-$30.
There are beaches and parks, but not a lot of other entertainment. There are plenty of tours, but we cannot afford to do tours every day. The WiFi on Santa Cruz is extremely slow, but we can send messages and sometimes download shows (slowly).
Most days we eat breakfast in our Airbnb. The kids work on language arts and math or read a book. We are knocking out our science curriculum on famous inventors. There is a nice park down the street that we go to often. It has a zip line and a basketball court perfect for pickleball.
We like to walk by the water and watch the crabs, sharks, seals, and birds. Our hotel has a pool. Henry and Lucas are like fish. They love swimming.
We did go check out two of the beaches on Santa Cruz. Tortuga Bay is a beautiful white sand beach. To get there, you either take a water taxi for $10 per person, or a nice 30 minute walk. We chose to walk. From our Airbnb it took about 45 minutes. The path to Tortuga bay is paved and not too hilly. It was hot when we went, but we got to jump in the ocean when we go there, so we did not mind.
His beak can hold more than his belly can.
He can hold in his beak
Enough food for a week!
But I’ll be darned if I know how the hellican?”
We went to Playa de Los Alemanes. We met up with a family we connected with on Facebook who just moved to that part of Santa Cruz.
The beach is beautiful, and it is only a short $0.80 water taxi ride from Puerto Ayora. There are a couple of restaurants and hotels on that part of the island, and a few houses. There are no roads or grocery stores. It is quiet living there.
We were also just down the street from the Charles Darwin Research Station. Like many other attractions in Galapagos, you now have to pay to have a guide take you through to see the turtles. It is $10 per person ($5 for kids). We heard that this put in place to protect the wildlife. We heard that people were stealing turtles and trying to smuggle them out of Galapagos. The guides are informative. We enjoyed having a guide to learn more about the research station and the wildlife.
Lucas and Henry also took an art class one day at an art studio near our Airbnb.
We did a lot in our 10-day tour of the islands. That pace is not sustainable. We would be drained if we tried to do a tour or full day of activities every day for a month. We are ok with zero or mostly zero-days, even in Galapagos. During that downtime, I completed my 2000 piece puzzle (thank you, Holly). We explored a lot on our own. We watched some movies, swam, played at the park, and read a lot of books.
We had a magical time in Galapagos.
