Bartolomé & Santiago Island
This morning we had an early start to one of the most iconic islands of the Galápagos, Bartolomé. At 6:30am we started our disembarkation from the National Geographic Endeavour and as we traveled on the Zodiacs towards the island the sun was rising on the horizon, promising a beautiful sunny day.
We landed on a small dock and walked on a wooden trail, built to prevent the erosion made by our footsteps. Inland we could see some of the endemic pioneer plants of the Galápagos, like the Tiquilia or gray carpet mat and lava cacti. Then we continue climbing up the 372 steps to reach the summit of Bartolome where we could see an amazing view of the Mars-like landscape formed by spatter, cinder and tuff cones; the golden beach with beautiful green vegetation on the isthmus in between the two beaches; and, of course, the famous Pinnacle Rock. In the background of the island we could see Santiago Island, the Bainbridge rocks and Sombrero Chino.
After breakfast we landed on the golden beach on Bartolome Island which is a nesting site of the green sea turtles. After getting ready we went snorkeling to find ourselves with Galápagos penguins, white tipped sharks, large schools of surgeon fish, grunts, and salemas. Conditions were great… same as the underwater activity! We spent the rest of the morning in this beautiful spot.
In the afternoon we hiked on Santiago Island, Puerto Egas, where we learned about the history of our adopted island. Once we got to the coastline we found some Galápagos fur seals sleeping in the grottos, yellow crown night herons, huge Sally light foot crabs and our good friends the marine iguanas basking under the sun. What a nice way to say goodbye to this magical paradise.
