Santiago Island
This morning, after an early rise, we landed on a chocolate-brown beach, called Espumilla, at 6.30am. The scene was straight out of a movie.
The lush vegetation provided ample shade for the many sea turtle nests, and fresh tracks made last night were seen in several places. We had an overcast sky with some light rain now and then, but nothing that wouldn’t pass. The air felt green and fresh, and the trail went up through dense vegetation dominated by large incense trees, evergreen shrubs like pearlberry and glorybower, and dense patches of grasses, sedges and herbs. Some maidenhair ferns were growing on the cinder rocks lining the trail. A bit higher we could see the saline ponds just above the tree line on the beach. Later our path was crossed by a dried-up riverbed, created by flash streams from torrential rainfalls during the many ENSO (El Nino Southern Oscillation) events here in the Galápagos.
Back on board, after breakfast and a break, we headed out for several options, like kayaking, snorkeling or cruising in a glass-bottom boat, all this along the dramatic cliffs of Buccaneers Cove.
After lunch, a siesta, and a presentation about the human history of the Galápagos, we had the last outing of this day in Puerto Egas, a scenic bay where the tuff cliffs could have been dreamed up by the painter Salvador Dali. This trail winds along a mesmerizing coast of grottos of bulbous lava flows, breaking up through a layer cake of tuff and interrupted by beaches of very mixed compositions. Imagine all this littered with sea lions, fur seals, shore birds and marina iguanas and you are almost there, but not yet quite – on the horizon you’ll see huge shield volcanoes, cinder cones and the ever-changing, ever-hypnotizing Pacific Ocean. It is this kind of scenery that will stay with you forever.
Some of the Galápagos hawks we spotted earlier on flew silently back into the hills, and on the landing beach we got to see spotted eagle rays trying to mate in the shallows. It was almost too much for one day.
