Bartolomé and Sombrero Chino
We started today very early, disembarking at 6:30 in the morning. Even this early you could feel the heavy humidity in the air, we disembarked at a cement pier, and after a few steps we were already sweating heavily – that’s life in the tropics!
Making use of a wooden stairway built by the Park Service, we climbed to the summit of the eroded volcano of Bartolomé. Almost all of our guests came on this outing, and we encountered many other groups from other companies making the same hike to the summit.
The highlight of the outing was of course seeing how the lava formed this island. There were also the tiny pioneer plants, the small lava lizards coming out to sunbathe and of course the fabulous view from the summit. We saw about ten penguins around the rocks, too – they are so special, penguins around the equator!
We could see several islands from the summit: Santiago, Santa Cruz, Bainbridge Rocks, Sombrero Chino, Rabida, Pinzon, the southern cones of Isabela Island the two Daphnis, Baltra, North Seymour and even Marchena to the north.
Later in the morning we went to the beach, took a glass-bottom boat cruise around Pinnacle Rock and went snorkeling around Bartolomé. We saw many colorful fish, sea stars and sharks in the temperate waters that the Galápagos offer this time of year – the water was 80F.
The afternoon around Sombrero Chino was a lot of fun. We went to a tiny beach to play with the sand, we snorkeled again, saw little penguins that swam with us, and we also saw a couple of sharks and a huge marbled stingray. Kayakers paddled around Sombrero Chino. It was another wonderful day.
