We had enjoyed exploring the Charles Darwin Research Station, but it was now time to move on.
After the Frog grabbed a Coke at the Darwin Station concession stand (in an original green glass returnable bottle no less!) we started our trek back towards the passenger dock at about 10:45. We were on our own at this point. Our only instructions were to follow the road closest to the water, Avenida Charles Darwin, and we would eventually come to the dock where we had come ashore earlier in the morning.
This area was obviously tourist oriented with many shops, but it was very nice. I liked the fact that the shops seemed like small local establishments rather than large companies from outside.
Christmas Ornament. Our first goal was to find a Christmas ornament to commemorate our trip. I am sure there would have been many potential places, but we stopped at one of the first shops we saw after leaving the Research Station. Sure enough, they had Christmas ornaments. We found a goofy blue-footed booby, which seemed to fit what we needed.
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| A Christmas tree ornament to remember the trip |
Our next goal was to find the Fish Market. We did not know where it was other than it was on Avenida Charles Darwin, the street we were on, so we just kept meandering.
It was a great place to walk, with lots of interesting things to see. Below is a nice little area at the corner of Avenida Charles Darwin Avenue on the right and Calle Floreana. Under the tree is a monument to Lonesome George.
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| The Tortoise Sculpture, Monument de la Tortuga is at the corner of Avenida Charles Darwin on the right and Calle Floreana to the left, just before we got to the Fish Market. It is a monument to Lonesome George. (By Torbenbrinker - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=73817687) |
Just beyond the Tortoise Sculpture, on the other side of the street, was a plaza with more seating.
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| View from in front of the Fish Market looking back towards the Tortoise Monument (in the background, across the street on the left). The statue in the background to the right in the plaza is a tribute to Galapagos fishermen. The bay, not visible in this picture, is behind the scalloped concrete railing on the right. Yes, that is a real sea lion in the foreground. He was headed to the shade of the trees. |
Fish Market. Immediately beyond the plaza was our target, the Fish Market!
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| L-shaped concrete counter in the center of the Fish Market |
The Fish Market is very simple and actually quite small. It is primarily just an L-shaped concrete counter at the water's edge where staff clean the fish brought in by the fishermen. Some cut up fish were already on the counter.
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| Cut-up fish on the counter at the Fish Market |
I wasn't sure what kinds of fish they were, but I did see some pink mottled scorpionfish or what is called brujo in Spanish. It is a common delicacy in restaurants in Santa Cruz, probably because it is only found in Galapagos. I don't know if we had any on the ship, although I might not have remembered even if they told us because the name didn't mean anything to me at the time.
We did have lots of tuna on the ship, which was very good. A lot of tuna, probably yellow fin tuna, is caught in the area. In fact, the coastal city of Manta, Ecuador, is considered by some to be the Tuna Capital of the World. I thought some of the other fish on the counter might be tuna, but I did not know.
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| Spotted scorpion fish or brujo |
BTW, the brujo that we saw here is not nearly as red as I have seen online elsewhere. I think I read that the red color comes from eating shrimp, so maybe these fish had been eating something else.
The fish market is fairly simple, but a closer look reveals why this fish market is different from most.-- the multitude of animals.
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| Two sea lions are lounging under the counter while a pelican and a great blue heron are close by in the background |
There were two sea lions under the counter, plus pelicans and a great blue heron were hanging out nearby, but no one shooed them away or even gave them much notice at all.
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| A great blue heron, pelicans, and marine iguanas at the fish market. |
There were even some marine iguanas hanging out further down the pier.
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| A pelican and a marine iguana |
Unfortunately they were not cutting up fish while we were there. The many YouTube videos (for example this one from 2019) show how the animals interact with the humans working at the market. To discard unwanted fish parts the workers don't throw them away, they throw them to the sea lions or pelicans.. The animals know the routine. All the pelicans in the region swarm in. The animals, including the sea lions, usually wait for scraps to be thrown their way. Of course, sometimes they get impatient and help themselves to something off the counter, but noone seems to care.
More often than not, it appeared the humans had to step over the sea lions as they tried to clean up.
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| Hosing down the floor of the Fish Market. That is Avenida Charles Darwin in the background. |
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| Stepping over and working around the sea lions |
I couldn't help but think that a health inspector at home, even seeing only what we saw, would have a heart attack over such an arrangement
Even though the Fish Market may have been uncharacteristically quiet, the location was beautiful.
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| View of the bay from the Fish Market. Some of the pelicans got bored and are on the boat canopy dead ahead. The La Pinta is the white ship on the horizon slightly to the right of center. The large ship to the left of center is one of the National Geographic cruise ships. |
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| Another view of the bay from the plaza next to the Fish Market |
We continued on down Avenida Charles Darwin, finally making it to the passenger dock area. We knew we were in the right place when we saw the big bird sculpture which we had seen earlier that morning. We found a shady bench and enjoyed some time just relaxing. I did not feel we had hurried, but we were the first to arrive other than two of the guides.
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| Bird Statue in the park near the end of the passenger dock (http://www.oceansart.us/FreePhotosGalapagosIslandsPuertoAyora/PuertoAyoraGalapagosImages/23.html) |
German Town. Puerto Ayora was originally settled by Scandinavians and Germans in the 1930's. Of particular note were the four Angermeyer brothers from Germany who traveled to Santa Cruz in 1935 to avoid the turmoil in Europe at that time Their descendants still live on Santa Cruz and operate touring yachts and the Angermeyer Waterfront Inn in Puerto Ayora.
The Angermeyers settled on the south side of Academy Bay. As pointed out by the guides, that part of Puerto Ayora is still referred to as German town. They also pointed out without further explanation that the original settlers had set it up so that the area was only accessible by boat. That persists even to today.
Our lunch was to be at the Finch Bay Hotel which is located in German town. It is therefore only accessible by water. We loaded into the pangas and were off.
Casa la Iguana. It was immediately obvious that German town is the upscale part of town. All of the properties visible from the water as we passed by looked quite impressive. The guide pointed out one which he said was available for sale and quoted some high price that I have now forgotten. I think it may have been the house refereed to as Casa la Iguana, which is a short term rental on Vrbo. It looks mighty nice and sounds even better in the Vrbo description, but I am not sure I could swing the $2800 rent per night.
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| Casa la Iguana, one of the homes we passed on the east side of Academy Bay on our way to lunch (By David Adam Kess - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=17830077) |
Walk to the hotel. Just beyond the dock for Casa la Iguana and the dock for the Angermeyer Hotel was our destination, the dock for Finch Bay Hotel. Although the panga ride from the passenger dock was only 2 minutes, it turned out we still had quite a ways to go. We followed a shaded path. In most places there were walls separating the path from the properties on either side.
After about ten minutes we came to a boardwalk next to a white sandy beach, Playa de los alemanes or, in English, German Beach. About halfway down the beach we went through a wooden gate and were on the property of Finch Bay Hotel.
Finch Bay Hotel. Finch Bay Hotel is owned and operated by Metropolitan Touring, the same company that owns La Pinta, I am sure part of our reason for being able to visit there while in town. Given the owners, it is no surprise that the hotel and accompanying restaurant are extremely upscale. However, coming from Texas where everything is air-conditioned to a temperature to rival our refrigerator, neither the lobby or the adjoining restaurant were air-conditioned. There were large doors open on multiple sides allowing for a breeze from the outside. It was comfortable, just different. I was also surprised at how small the hotel is, 21 regular rooms and 6 suites. However, that is probably not small considering the location.
The buffet lunch was very nice, much like the meals we had been having on the ship. Although the hotel website has pictures, this review on Tripadvisor has pictures of the restaurant and lobby more as I remember them.
The hotel is in a beautiful location. The lobby and the restaurant look out over the pool. The beach is just beyond.
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| Pool at the Finch Bay Hotel with the La Pinta in the background |
Some of the others in our group took advantage of the hotel's pool. Paul, Gwen, James, the Frog and I just chilled out and enjoyed some downtime together.
After this very nice leisurely lunch, it was time for our next adventure, a trip to the highlands to see giant tortoises. That is the topic of the next post.
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