The End of the Road

Sunday, July 12th. The End of the Road

We have our usual 7:00 A.M. wake up call and gather mid deck for our final breakfast together. There is a flurry of last minute e-mail exchange and the flash of cameras before we leave our floating home and are dropped at the San Cristobal dock. Our family will spend one night in San Cristobal and there is some confusion as to how our suitcases should be tagged since we are the only ones not flying out today. Alexis is curt with us; I believe because we are not well-behaved sheep following his departure schedule and after the perfunctory goodbyes, we leave to find our hotel. Our early morning stroll through this small sleepy town is pleasant but when we arrive at the supposed site of Hotel Galapagos, it no longer exists. Happily, our suitcases are dropped off, simultaneously to our arrival and with the help of the driver, we find that we are booked at Hostel Galapagos, not Hotel Galapagos. A short taxi drive delivers us and our luggage to the correct hotel, but they have no record of our reservation so, we simply pay the $70.00, resigned to simply sort things out when we get home. We are given two adjacent harbor side bungalows. The rooms are very simple but open onto a stone patio, with steps down to the sand and rock sea wall beyond. It's a very short walk into town and we find our group having coffee at an outdoor cafe. John immediately joins in and plays a final round of cards while Art and I peruse the nearby tourist shops. After the glitch with the hotel, we decide to accompany our group to the airport and reconfirm our flight out for tomorrow. Alexis helps us at the counter and he is as relieved as we are that our tickets are in order.

I've choreographed most of the trip and today is Art's day to plan the agenda. He wants to rent bicycles and explore the island and I am looking forward to the ride. Renting the bicycles is easy and at the suggestion of the bike rental office, we hire a taxi to drive us up to the hillside town of El Progresso. We will ride to Junco from there, which we anticipate to be mostly downhill. Perhaps we misunderstand the drop off point, but the ride turns out to be a seemingly endless uphill climb. We ride and push our bicycles along a deserted highland road. Mist hangs heavy in the air, and the ribbon of roughly paved road ahead is shrouded in a cloud, giving me the hopeful illusion that a town must be just around the next curve. We continue uphill for two hours. Art continually checks back on us, concerned that John is hungry and that I am tiring. I am determined to remain in good spirits, and I am intrigued by the sense of the unknown; but eventually, we all begin to wonder if we will ever arrive at civilization. We come to the turn off to the Junco Lagoon, the only freshwater lagoon on any of the Galapagos Islands. The two taxis that passed us an hour earlier wait for their passengers to return from their hike up to the lagoon. Although we have come this far, we don't climb the mountain to the lagoon since we have no way to secure our bicycles and even Art is getting tired. In broken Spanish, Art asks the drivers how far it is to the next town. It is just 8 more kilometers and all down hill, so we decide to continue and return in a taxi. John speeds on ahead and when we catch up to him, some 30 minutes later we find him sitting in a village cafe, sipping on a coca cola and eating an empanada. He looks completely comfortable in this local restaurant; his feet up on a white plastic chair, watching Ecuadorian T.V. Art and I collapse into adjoining plastic chairs and order the chicken and rice which a local woman spoons from a large kettle simmering on her stove. The empanadas are heavenly; deep-fried, stuffed with a mild cheese and dusted with sugar. We are completely content, knowing that this destination could have never been choreographed. Chickens scurry across the road between the restaurant and a local tin roofed sports stadium. It's Sunday afternoon and the locals are playing a game of volleyball, their clothes and shoes stained red from the surrounding dirt. A group of woman sits at the only other table, friends and family of the two women cooking in the house. The village consists of little more than the stadium and this neighborhood restaurant. We watch the road for over an hour, hoping for a taxi, but the only ones that have passed have been packed full of people in the extended cabs as well as in the beds of the pickup trucks. (Most of the taxis on the island are pick up trucks with an extended cabs.) Eventually, we ask one of the women to call us a taxi but after considerable trying, she gestures that she gets no answer. The grey mist turns to rain, the volley ball game ends and the few spectators are leaving. The lone car in the village drives off and not a single car or taxi passes through. It is well after 3:00 P.M. on a Sunday afternoon and I'm now very worried that we will not be able to get back to the port and our hotel. John has a forlorn look and even Art is beginning to worry. It would be nearly impossible to ride the 8 kilometers back uphill in the drizzle and pending dark. We decide that Art may need to take a spot in the back of a community taxi, go into town and return for us later, a plan that doesn't thrill me. 30 minutes later, another woman, who has been busy on her cell phone, finally communicates to us that she has reached a taxi and that it will be here in a few minutes. We are relieved and grateful when an empty taxi pick arrives. We load our bicycles in the bed of the truck, pile inside along with a young girl and her brother and drive back along the misty road. It is 4:30 when we arrive at the harbor and return our bicycles and we joke that the misguided directions were a ploy of the bicycle shop to extend our rental hours.

The town is quiet on this Sunday night, but a few restaurants are open for the straggling tourists still on the island. We choose a simple restaurant at the far side of the malacon; an exercise in slow food and slow service; but we have no schedule and I reflect on the adventures of the day and the simple magic of this island evening.