Planes, buses, ferries, and a taxi- getting to the Galapagos from Quito

Arrival in Balta- first thing you will notice is they you are o of the equator

Getting to the Galapagos from Quito is no small task. Lots of moving pieces. Planes, buses, ferries, and a taxi. I’m going to write up our experience as if you were a 6 year old child because I wish someone had done this for me.

1. Your downtown Quito hotel is about 40 minutes from Quito international airport. They recommend 3 hours early which means you leave the hotel about 4 hours early. For us that meant a 4am wake up.

   
   

2. First task at the airport is to pay your $20pp TCT card. About half the people report being able to do this in advance online. The other half experience web glitches. Just like our experience getting the declaration visa code for Ecuador (done prior to leaving the states), the online system didn’t work for us so once at the airport, we needed to get in line for a TCT card (transit control card). Our guide said that line can be 3 hours long itself! Thankfully it wasn’t busy when we were there. It’s a ridiculously archaic process. Everyone has to physically write down their email. Then hand ot over to the clerk and it gets entered into the system. Then you take a photo of your TCT card in case the email version never arrives. We suspect the worker entered our email wrong, as we are still waiting for the TCT receipt. The pictures of the bar code worked.

   
   

3. After getting your TcT card you get in line to have your luggage scanned. They are pretty serious about not bringing things to Galapagos that could alter the environment so that line can also be slow.

   
   

4. Next you do normal boarding and will likely fly to Galapagos with a 40 minute stop in Guayaquil.  The entire process took us about 2 hours from arrival at the airport, but there was only 4 people in front of us getting our TCT cards and just a dozen for the luggage check. I would say get there 3 hours early.

   
   

5. You will likely make a stop in Guayaquil but will not be allowed to exit the airplane. Some people leave, others board. They gassed up the airplane and made us completely shut down anything electronic, including our cell phones and no lavatory use while fueling the plane so use the planes bathroom immediately at landing.

   
   

6. While flying to Galapagos they handed out a government declaration form with the exact same questions as the declaration visa form we filled out online back in Michigan (no plants, no near livestock, no camping gear). This form proved  entirely useless as all they wanted was the QR code.

   
   

7. About 30 minutes before landing in the Galapagos, the flight crew opened every overhead bin and sprayed down all of our carry-on luggage so that we wouldn’t be bringing in foreign bacteria or viruses

   https://video.wixstatic.com/video/717ba1_1d9ebed89e7c44e0a4509f3b78c23777/144p/mp4/file.mp4

   Disinfecting the carry on luggage

   
   

8. There are two places to fly into in the Galapagos- Baltra and San Cristobal. We flew into Balta and will fly out of San Cristobal. Once you land in the Galapagos you must stand in line to show your passport.

   
   

9. After you get cleared for entry, your pay $200 pp National Park entrance fee in cash only (counter is right next to where you show passport)

   
   

10. From there you go to the declaration station and show them the declaration barcode you received before travel. Remember it was the same form they had us fill out on the plane, but the declaration officer did not want to see the paper copy at all (I ended up throwing that form in the garbage). All they wanted to see was the barcode. We hit a little road bump here. The directions from Jacky said to fill out the customs declaration form “BEFORE TRaVEL” so we filled them out before we left Detroit. What the form should have said was to fill out the declaration form no more than 48 hours before flying to the galapagos. Because we filled out the form two days before we started traveling, but we spent three days in Quito, technically our declaration form was no longer valid because it must be filled out within 48 hours of arriving in the Galapagos (not 48 hours before travel like our directions said).

    
    

11. Once thru declaration station you have to get your bags scanned a third time. All in the name of protecting the Galapagos environment from anything foreign.

    
    

    AND HERE IS WHERE THE REaL FUN STARTS-

12. I mentioned earlier that I like to be personally greeted when I land in a foreign country, particularly a foreign country that uses another language. We worked it out with our hotel to have a driver waiting for us with a sign with my name on it. He helped us navigate through the bus, ferry, and one hour taxi ride to our hotel. The cost was $50 for the door to door service. If you want to navigate yourself the cost is $30. We were happy we paid the extra to help us navigate the bus and ferry.

    
    

13. Our driver met us at baggage claim and walked with us to pick up our bus ticket. $5 pp. bring small bills, the lady wouldn’t give change for a $20. Our driver loaded our luggage on the bus and off we went.

    

    buy your bus ticket at this counter

    
    

    

    Take a bus from the airport to the ferry

14. Next stop is the ferry. They loaded all luggage ontop of the ferry and collected $1 pp for the 5 minute ferry ride from balta to Santa Cruz

    

    $1 Ferry ride

Crossing canal Itabaca from the island of Balta to Santa Cruz

From there is was about 30-40 minute drive to the town of Puerta Ayoya.

All in all it was about 8 hours from our wake up call in Quito to our arrival at the hotel in Puerto Ayoya - and worth every minute.

Hotel Coloma- our quaint and quirky home for the next week