Posted by The best way to go around the Galapagos is probably on a cruise. You can do a lot of stuff on a day trip around the inhabited island like we did in the first four days of our visit to the islands. But to really get to the remote areas you really need to go on a live aboard cruise for a few days.
We had organized a cruise from home and it was starting from the airport on Baltra. So basically we had to go to the airport to catch the boat. To get to the airport there we had to get a ride to the airport. The trip takes a while – we have to go along the only main highway on Santa Cruz. Fortunately there isn’t much traffic on the highway so the drive is fast and the ferry across the water to Baltra and the connecting bus to the airport fortunately goes quickly as well.
We get to the airport to find our pick up there – after a while they show up a bit before the flight from Quito. It is only us arriving from the island Santa Cruz everybody else fly in more or less directly from the USA – they don’t know what they have been missing out on by not going to explore Santa Cruz.
I thought we would have to go back on a bus to Puerto Ayora where we left from since there wasn’t any major ships in sight at the little harbor were we cross the water to the airport. But it turns out we will actually drive to another harbor on Baltra so we don’t have to go back to where we came from.
On our journey to the ship we actually see a major iguana – this is a land iguana unlike the many land iguanas we have seen already in and around Puerto Ayora. I had expected we would see more iguanas later but it turns out this one is the only land iguana we will see in the wild.
The view at Baltra harbor 
The cruise harbor at Baltra
We get the small boat to go to the ship Santa Cruz II and then we are ready to explore the islands. Well that is we first have to get all sorts of introductions to the boat and the safety procedures onboard the ship and how to check in and out when leaving the ship and so.
FrejaTravels 