When traveling to the Galapagos Islands remember there are a few fees you have to pay. We did not know this before we left. Before you can get on the plane to travel over you have to pay $10 a person to get a tourist card. When you arrive in the Galapagos Islands Airport you have to pay $100 dollars per person to enter the park. It has to be cash and every island is considered a national park. Do not forget this money. We only had $190 cash on us when my husband and I got there. The only option we had was to pay for one person and give them my passport. We were told to go to town to get the remaining ten dollars. To do this we had to hop on a free bus, then a ferry that cost $0.80 a person, then an hour bus ride for $1.80 a person. Finally we arrived in town and found an atm (atm fee is only $2.00), however, the airport closes at 3 pm. The next morning we went to the LAN office (LAN is the airline we flew on) they knew nothing about my passport or how to get it. When we were in Miami flying to Guayaquil the bag my husband checked never got put on the plane so we went to find out if they knew anything about his bag, all they could tell us about his bag was it wasn’t there. (My husband was extremely stressed out about this because he was planning on proposing to me on this trip and the engagement ring was in the bag.) We met a local and were told that you have to go to the Darwin Center to get your passports. We were able to go there and pick mine up after we paid the fees. Also my husband finally received his bag after four days of waiting. We wasted an entire day and a half trying to get my passport back so make sure you have cash to cover all the fees for the Galapagos Islands, both on the island and the main land.
September 24, 2014