Quito - Day 4 - Galapagos tour booked!

Finally Monday morning came about so it was in to the New Town of Quito to try to find a last minute deal on Galapagos tours.  A few of the bigger name operators didn't have anything until August so I was a bit disheartened early in the day.  One of my google searches had mentioned a place called ´Happy Gringo' (www.happygringo.com) and they were absolutley brilliant.  Once I was in there they were on the phone to one boat or another, and nearly had mean on a 5 day tour on an Economy boat but I just missed the booking on that.  So I settled for the Aida Maria which is a tourist superior boat, and is a bit more than I wanted to pay but once you're paying stupid amounts to get to the islands what's another few dollars a day!

So after all that running around I didn't get to check out of the Secret Garden until about 2 in the arvo. I now had a bit of a dilemma since I had planned to just head south at this point, however I now needed to spend at least one more day in Quito to pay off my Galapagos tour.  As I stood there at the checkout desk, pondering a day trip to Mindo among other things, blind luck brought the news that a dorm bed had become available.  I now had some good friends at the Secret Garden so one more night there was a great option!