Southern Isabela Island
Today was not a typical day in the Galápagos…what am I talking about? Never is there a typical day in this archipelago!
It is hard to believe that within such a small group of islands we could find so much biodiversity, and even better, the options that we have been offering to our guests, makes our adventure more interesting.
Isabela Island being the largest in the archipelago deserves a bit more of attention, and that is why we have chosen a couple of areas at the southern side to explore it more in depth.
Early in the morning we landed on a beautiful, small black beach surrounded by mangrove and typical vegetation found on the shoreline; however, once in the trail, the vegetation changed to reveal a real “Palo Santo forest” covered with all kind of creatures above and below. One of the first surprises was the carcasses of many creatures that had die of natural and unnatural causes. Giant tortoises’ skeletons were found nearby the trail, and since the hunting of these reptiles is forbidden in the islands, we can only think that it is one of those very old tortoises which die in a natural way.
This was not the case of the other skeletons, since goats' and donkeys' remains were also found in the same area, but this is a product of the active eradication campaign that the National Park Service implemented on Isabela Island since a couple of years ago. Thanks to the eradication programs, the giant tortoises are now repopulating areas from which they were gone long ago, and today we had a living proof of this successful campaign: a very healthy baby tortoise was found not too far away from the inland trail!
Land iguanas were also found, and each one of them had reached gigantic sizes; they were mostly showing their aggressive “typical behavior” of the season towards one another, but there were quite a few that simply stared at us with the unmistakable face of curiosity.
Our morning ended with a refreshing swimming from the beach and a round of kayaks along the dramatic shoreline.
This current voyage with as many as sixteen young guests had been so far a delightful experience. Kids and young adults are very eager to explore the islands in every possible way, and some of them were even in command of their own Zodiac, as they practiced all morning and obtained their official Islander credential as the youngest Zodiac operators of the ship!
Today was not a typical day in the Galápagos…what am I talking about? Never is there a typical day in this archipelago!
It is hard to believe that within such a small group of islands we could find so much biodiversity, and even better, the options that we have been offering to our guests, makes our adventure more interesting.
Isabela Island being the largest in the archipelago deserves a bit more of attention, and that is why we have chosen a couple of areas at the southern side to explore it more in depth.
Early in the morning we landed on a beautiful, small black beach surrounded by mangrove and typical vegetation found on the shoreline; however, once in the trail, the vegetation changed to reveal a real “Palo Santo forest” covered with all kind of creatures above and below. One of the first surprises was the carcasses of many creatures that had die of natural and unnatural causes. Giant tortoises’ skeletons were found nearby the trail, and since the hunting of these reptiles is forbidden in the islands, we can only think that it is one of those very old tortoises which die in a natural way.
This was not the case of the other skeletons, since goats' and donkeys' remains were also found in the same area, but this is a product of the active eradication campaign that the National Park Service implemented on Isabela Island since a couple of years ago. Thanks to the eradication programs, the giant tortoises are now repopulating areas from which they were gone long ago, and today we had a living proof of this successful campaign: a very healthy baby tortoise was found not too far away from the inland trail!
Land iguanas were also found, and each one of them had reached gigantic sizes; they were mostly showing their aggressive “typical behavior” of the season towards one another, but there were quite a few that simply stared at us with the unmistakable face of curiosity.
Our morning ended with a refreshing swimming from the beach and a round of kayaks along the dramatic shoreline.
This current voyage with as many as sixteen young guests had been so far a delightful experience. Kids and young adults are very eager to explore the islands in every possible way, and some of them were even in command of their own Zodiac, as they practiced all morning and obtained their official Islander credential as the youngest Zodiac operators of the ship!
