November 28, 2024

Seymour Airport to Puerto Ayora: What You Need to Know

By In Trip Reports

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We loved visiting the Galápagos Islands in November 2024! A true once-in-a-lifetime experience. Not only was nature magical, but I felt in awe that I was visiting the very same places that inspired Charles Darwin to write his book The Origin of Species. As someone who grew up loving science and biology and completely sold on the idea of evolution, visiting the Galápagos meant a lot to my nerdy side.

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But before enjoying the splendid beauty of the Galápagos Islands, you have to get to your hotel first. (Well, first you have to fly to the Galápagos, which requires its own complete guide here.) If you arrive at San Cristóbal airport, your trip to your hotel on San Cristóbal Island should be very straightforward: you just take a taxi to where you want to go. Honestly, if you are an adventurous backpacker and your hotel is close enough in Puerto Baquerizo Moreno, you could even walk from the airport. Either way, you can easily figure out your transportation at San Cristóbal airport.

Unfortunately, if you arrive at Seymour Airport on Baltra Island, getting to your hotel will be an adventure in itself. When we arrived at Seymour Airport, I did not expect the hoops we had to jump through to get from Seymour Airport to Puerto Ayora. And because I didn’t research this part ahead of time – partially due to a misunderstanding with our hotel – I had to figure this all out at the airport. So pay attention!

Note: if you are going straight from Seymour Airport to a Galápagos Islands cruise, your cruise tour operator should have a guide meet you at the airport. Confirm with your tour company, but generally, this is part of the service, especially if they leave from the Seymour Island cruise dock. Either way, you shouldn’t have to travel from Seymour Airport to Puerto Ayora alone if you are immediately joining a cruise. Thus, this guide is almost entirely meant for visitors staying at a hotel on Santa Cruz Island, usually in Puerto Ayora or the Punta Estrada neighborhoods.

Part 1: Seymour Airport to Santa Cruz Ferry

To better understand why the journey from Seymour Airport to Puerto Ayora seems so convoluted, know that Seymour Airport is on Baltra Island. But everything else is on Santa Cruz Island, including the main town, Puerto Ayora. On Google Maps, you may assume the two islands connect by bridge because they are very close to each other. But they don’t connect, which is a problem for you. You’ll need to catch the ferry to Santa Cruz to get to Santa Cruz – this is the only way.

But you can’t just hail a taxi or call an Uber from the Airport to the Santa Cruz ferry. Problem #2: there are no taxis on Baltra Island. Instead, the sole bus company Lobito has a monopoly on travel from Seymour Airport. (Lobito means “little wolf” in Spanish, but in the context of the Galápagos, it means “little Sea Lion.” Sea lions are called sea wolves in Spanish and are ubiquitous throughout the Galápagos.)

Photo of the Lobito bus at Seymour Airport in the Galápagos.
The Lobito buses are your only transportation option.

Lobito is the only game in town, so just do as they say. After you exit baggage claim, go outside and turn right. You’ll see a little ticket counter towards the bathrooms – the bathrooms are outside at the airport. If you aren’t literally the first person leaving your plane, you’ll see other people already lining up to buy tickets. Go stand in line and wait your turn.

Photo of an iguana at Seymour Airport.
My attempt at giving you directions of where to get the bus tickets. This won’t make any sense unless you turn right after exiting the arrivals lounge after exiting baggage claim.

Once you get to the ticket booth, you pay US$5 per person to take the bus. You’ll buy your bus tickets in advance at the ticket booth, so the rest of your family can sit and wait on the benches while you go through the line. Generally, the staff will assume you want to cross to Santa Cruz Island. However, if there is any hesitation, you want the bus to Canal de Itabaca, aka the “canal” or “Santa Cruz” bus. (There is a second bus route from Seymour Airport to the Cruise Ship Dock on Isla Baltra. Your cruise ship tour guide should buy these tickets for you in advance; thus, it would be weird buying such tickets on your own.)

After buying bus tickets, board the next Lobito bus to the Canal de Itabaca. It takes around 10 minutes and is comparable to riding a school bus from the 1980s. The only difference is that you store your bags under the bus rather than taking the bags onto the bus.

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Part 2: Crossing the Canal de Itabaca

The bus can lead you to water but won’t make you cross it. And that is precisely what happens here at Canal de Itabaca. The Lobito bus will drop you off at the canal, and you won’t really be sure what to do next. You’ll need to board one of the water taxis that crosses the canal to drop you off on Santa Cruz Island. You need not worry about tickets, which boat to board, or where to go. Just stand in line with everyone else facing the canal, and you’ll see the little water taxi come. There will then be a lot of shouting in Spanish – don’t take it as rude! – and hustling you onto the boat.

Photo of the dock on the Seymour Island side of the Canal de Itabaca.
The line to board a water taxi at Canal de Itabaca. We are on Isla Baltra and facing Santa Cruz Island – located across the canal – for context.

You won’t take your bags on the boat with you. Instead, one of the porters will load the bags either on the roof of the water taxi or in the baggage part of the boat on the side. Watch them do this to ensure your bags come with you. While you wait for everyone to board, put on your life jacket. If there is anything you’ll quickly get used to in the Galápagos, it is the act of putting on a life jacket.

Photo of a generic water taxi in the Galápagos Islands.
Interior of the water taxi at the Canal de Itabaca. Put on your lifejacket as soon as you can because the boat will take off without warning.
Photo of Kevin putting on his life vest on a water taxi in the Canal de Itabaca.
Kevin puts on his life jacket for the first time in the Galápagos aboard the water taxi. Little did we know we would become champs at life jacket-wearing by the end of our Galápagos trip.

After departing the dock, someone on the boat will ask you to pay the fare. The fares are US$1 per person (as of 2024). Another thing I learned quickly about the Galápagos: bring a ton of small change. Because Mainland Ecuador sort of runs on small change, we already had a bag of quarters and dollar coins. It was a lifesaver. Ecuador does not use one-dollar bills as a general rule but instead relies on one-dollar coins (the gold coins the U.S. Post Office used to give out). This is another thing to bring from the U.S. or Mainland Ecuador.

US and Ecuador coins.
Ecuador uses the U.S. dollar as its official currency, including U.S. dollar coins. However, Ecuador also mints its own coins at parity with the U.S. dollar. Thus, the fifty-cent coin in this photo equals 50 U.S. cents. Ecuadorian and U.S. coins are used interchangeably in Ecuador and the Galápagos, but the U.S. won’t accept Ecuadorian coins.

The crossing takes less than ten minutes and could vary from a lovely water taxi ride to where are your sea sickness pills? Sort of depends on the weather and winds at the time. These water taxis are little boats, so keep that in mind. But for the most part, relax for the next ten minutes and take in the sights.

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Part 3: Itabaca to Puerto Ayora

You now got to Santa Cruz Island. Congratulations! But note that you are in the middle of nowhere on the Island. You have to get to Puerto Ayora, which is the only town and conveniently located on the opposite side of the island.

After you disembark the water taxi, stop and ensure you collect your bags after the porter removes them from the boat. To travel to Puerto Ayora, you now have two options: bus or taxi. Think quickly because the bus and the taxis don’t wait for anyone, and everyone will be rushing from the water taxi to the bus and taxis.

The taxis – usually white pick-up trucks, not yellow cabs – seat up to four people and cost $25 per person. The benefit is that the taxis will drive you straight to your hotel in Puerto Ayora and drive faster on the roads than the bus. The negative is that they are much more expensive than the bus, which only costs $5 per person. But the bus won’t bring you to your hotel; instead the bus will only drop you off at the Puerto Ayora Bus Station. In other words, the bus only makes two stops: the Canal de Itabaca and the Puerto Ayora Bus Station. That is it. (In truth, the bus does make some local stops along the way, but unless you truly, truly, truly know where you are going, you won’t have any idea where to get off.)

Paper tickets from Canal de Itabaca to Puerto Ayora.
Our bus ticket from Canal de Itabaca to Puerto Ayora Bus Station.

Note that the prices I quoted above are accurate as of December 2024 and are non-negotiable. The bus and taxi fares are fixed rates, regardless of where you are going. Everything on Santa Cruz Island is operated by the Bus and Taxi Drivers’ Union, so it is what it is.

In terms of picking a taxi, just pick one in the parking lot. All of the taxi drivers will be shouting at you, so go with one that has a nice smile. For the bus, you have to find one of the people selling bus tickets. Unlike at the airport, there is no bus ticket stand. Instead, in the parking lot, you’ll find various people shouting Bus and holding the tickets as shown above. Buy the ticket, and the person will point to which bus you’ll take. Note that these “buses” are not like regular buses but more like vans, and they just wait in the parking lot.

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Get on the bus and hold your ticket. Once the bus fills, another person – probably the person you bought the ticket from! – will come on the bus and collect the tickets from you. In other words, the tickets are recycled (that is why I blacked out the ticket number in the photo above).

Whether you choose the bus or taxi, this is a good time to nap. The ride is 45-60 minutes, and there isn’t anything to see except for the last couple of minutes.

View from the bus going from Seymour Airport to Puerto Ayora.
95% of your taxi or bus ride from Seymour Airport to Puerto Ayora will look like this during the rainy season (brown trees if during the dry season).

Part 4: Puerto Ayora Bus Station to Your Hotel

If you opted for the taxi ride, you’ll be dropped off at your hotel (unless your hotel is in Punta Estrada, which you’ll have to take yet another water taxi to get to – see Part 5 below). But if you were cheap like us and opted for the bus ride, your ride will come to an abrupt end at the Puerto Ayora Bus Station (Terminal Terrestre). If your hotel happens to be nearby, maybe you’ll be okay walking. But the bus station is just far enough away from Downtown Puerto Ayora that walking probably isn’t in the cards.

The exterior of the Puerto Ayora Bus Station (terminal terrestre).
The Puerto Ayora Bus Station on Santa Cruz Island.

Your only option at this point is to take a taxi from the Bus Station to your hotel. The Bus Station doesn’t have any services, so this isn’t a place you’ll want to spend any time. Fortunately, there will be taxis waiting outside at the bus station. Look for the white pickup trucks with orange license plates (or white license plates with an orange stripe at the top).

If you are going within Puerto Ayora, your taxi fare shouldn’t be more than US$2, maybe $3 tops. Very few hotels are outside of Puerto Ayora on Santa Cruz Island, so in theory, you shouldn’t need to go anywhere else. The exception is if your hotel is in Punta Estrada, home to several hotels, including the Finch Bay Hotel, where we stayed. If you are going to Punta Estrada, let your driver know, and he’ll drop you off at the Puerto Ayora Ferry Terminal.

Oh wait, you didn’t know you had to take another water taxi to your hotel? Well, neither did we. Live and learn. Otherwise, you have completed the journey from Seymour Airport to Puerto Ayora – congratulations!

Carved map of Punta Estrada next to Puerto Ayora.
This friendly and bilingual map greets you at the entrance to Punta Estrada. In the map above, the white area is the actual town of Puerto Ayora, the gray area is the national park area of Santa Cruz Island, and the wood is meant to be the ocean. As such, you can see how Punta Estrada is isolated from Puerto Ayora.

Part 5: Puerto Ayora to Punta Estrada

Punta Estrada is isolated from the rest of Santa Cruz Island, including Puerto Ayora. This is one of the charms of this quaint neighborhood, as it is very peaceful and quiet. But it also means there is no way to get there besides the water taxi. So, if you stay in Punta Estrada, you’ll experience five connections traveling to or from Seymour Airport.

Tell your taxi driver you are going to Punta Estrada (or name your hotel), and they should know to take you to the Puerto Ayora Ferry Terminal. The terminal is in “downtown” Puerto Ayora – if you can even say there is a downtown – so this might be a good time to stop and get some lunch before continuing to your hotel (your flight probably arrived mid to late morning, so by now, it will be early to mid-afternoon).

Photo of downtown Puerto Ayora along Avenida Charles Darwin.
Downtown Puerto Ayora. I am standing on Avenida Charles Darwin and looking northeast towards Avenida Baltra. El Descanso del Guía is the restaurant with the hedges above the wooden fence on the left side of this photo. For context, the Ferry Terminal is to the right and not shown in this photo.

We ate at this small restaurant across the street from the ferry terminal called El Descanso del Guía. It is nothing fancy at all and serves generic Ecuadorian fare. But it was very good and relatively cheap for the Galápagos. You’ll know what I mean if you are used to Latin American menú del día type lunches. Expect some meat with a side of rice, beans, or plantains. I’d recommend it if you are hungry.

The left plate is pork chop - chuleta - with lentil rice, and the right is grilled chicken with white rice and beans.
The left plate is pork chop – chuleta – with lentil rice, and the right is grilled chicken with white rice and beans.

After eating, cross the street to the Ferry Terminal and catch a water taxi. The biggest tip here is that water taxis in this area are always painted yellow/orange and say Taxi on the side of the boat. If you aren’t sure which taxi to take, just say you want to go to Punta Estrada and the name of your hotel. The taxi driver will either ask you to board or will say no.

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The water taxis are US$1 per person each way. The trip to Punta Estrada takes five minutes, and the ride is calm for the most part. And then you are done! You finally made it all the way from Seymour Airport – which feels like a world away at this point – to your Galápagos hotel.

Water taxis are the last leg on the journey from Seymour Airport to Puerto Ayora for those staying in Punta Estrada.
Two water taxis appear in this photo. You can easily spot them as they are painted yellow and say Taxi on them. Also, note the amount of yachts you see.

Final Thoughts on the Journey from Seymour Airport to Puerto Ayora

As you have read, the trip from Seymour Airport to Puerto Ayora is anything but simple. It is an adventure. But it is well worth it to visit the Galápagos!

Note that our stay in the Galápagos included one night in a hotel and four nights aboard a cruise. The travel agent recommended that we stay at the hotel on our last night because our cruise ship ended in Puerto Ayora. Thus, it would be very easy to get to the hotel. However, we stayed the first night in Puerto Ayora because we didn’t want to risk our flight being delayed or canceled and missing the cruise ship entirely. It was way too risky.

An alternative solution would have been taking the group flight from Quito to Seymour Airport. That way, if the flight gets delayed or canceled, the travel agency still guarantees our arrival aboard the cruise ship. However, the price was more expensive than booking the flight directly. Additionally, I wanted to redeem our frequent flyer miles, which I couldn’t do through the travel agency.

If you are traveling from Puerto Ayora back to Seymour Airport, you complete the same steps above, but in reverse. Since our cruise ship dropped us off in Puerto Ayora, I had pre-booked a transfer back to Seymour Airport. The step are the same, the only difference is that you have a guide that comes with you. Your guide will take care of bus and taxi fares and keep you moving down the correct path.

Let me know in the comments what tips and tricks you have to share with our readers regarding the Galápagos Islands! And if you have journeyed from Seymour Airport to Puerto Ayora – or the reverse – let us know your thoughts!

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1 Comment
  1. DA January 5, 2025

    Excellent, detailed, thorough instructions for going to the Galapagos Islands. I like the way you describe things, in REAL talk and not travel-agent-talk. It’s great to have all these details, tips & tricks you gave us, because I get the feeling that everything moves very quickly on that trip going to the Galapagos and you have to be sharp; one wrong move could ruin the whole trip. Thank you for this blog.

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