Today we started our morning early at around 7:00 and headed down to the hotels continental breakfast. Then around 8:15 we started our morning off with a presentation by Haley about tourism and conservation in the Galapagos Islands. Tourism first started in 1935 on cruise ships and by 1979 there was 10 times increase of tourists since 1935. From 1950 to 2005 there was a huge increase in the residents and the tourists on the Islands. On Santa Cruz there are a few things that really attract tourists such as Tortuga Bay which we will get to visit very soon. She discussed how there was a very huge shift from cruise-based tourism to hotel-based tourism and how by 2018 there was three times more hotel visitors than cruise visitors. The tour types of tourism kind of started off equal and then hotel-based tourism just took off while cruise-based just sort-of flat lines. The threats of the islands were something that interested me. We discussed invasive species, overfishing, microplastics, and much more. She discussed a recycling plant on Santa Cruz and they actually recycle about 40% of their trash. We then started our journey to the airport!! We got to the airport over three hours before our flight was about to board so got through security and then walked around and got anything we might have forgotten to pack. We got our food and then waited for our flight to get here!!
We boarded our flight and were getting ready for the long fight ahead of us. After the seven-hour long flight we finally made it to Guayaquil, Ecuador. We got our passports stamped and got our luggage and then we were off to our hotel. We stayed in a hotel called Exe Hotels, which had lots of beautiful art work all over the walls and all throughout the hotel. We then went to dinner at a place super close to our hotel where we were served orange juice and mushroom and cheese risotto. After dinner we went back to our room and Diego gave us an introductory presentation. He discussed the different things we would be seeing in the next two weeks as well as how we would be getting everywhere. When discussing the Galapagos Islands he mentioned how they no longer allow single use plastics on the islands like plastic water bottles and plastic bags. After Diego's presentation it was late so we all headed to bed because we had to get up early and head to the Galapagos Islands!!
Sculpture found by the elevators in our Hotel
Extra Research:
Tortuga Bay Tortuga Bay is located on Santa Cruz Island. The beach on Tortuga Bay does not allow swimmers and is just there for the wildlife. It is common to see marine iguana, Galapagos crabs, white tip reef sharks, tiger sharks, and the Galapagos giant tortoise. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tortuga_Bay