Bartolomé & Santiago Islands
We started our first full day in the Galápagos with a very invigorating early morning outing to climb up a volcano before breakfast. We climbed more than three hundred wooden stairs up and then down to reach the summit of the very eroded top of Bartolomé volcano. The Park Service has done a great job in building this wooden staircase all the way to the top to avoid the erosion of the area. Mischievous lava lizards accompanied us on our way up.
Some of us thought it was going to be hard but it was actually very easy and a lot of fun. We took marvelous pictures up at the top of the volcano. Wonderful colors of the lava flows, the cones and blue skies and ocean made the perfect composition for great pictures.
The morning highlights were the snorkeling lessons as well as all the wildlife that swam around us: crabs, sea turtles, a garden eel, a sting ray, Galápagos penguins, playful sea lions and lots colorful fish, among others.
Before we started our afternoon walk at Puerto Egas, King Neptune decided to give us a gift: the visit of three wonderful Orca whales! We went very close to them in our Zodiacs. They were feeding close to the shore and we had the best of times enjoying their company!
In the afternoon we saw a lot of big marine iguanas, lava lizards, some shore birds such as plovers and American oystercatchers; Brown pelicans and blue-footed boobies cheered up the walk at Puerto Egas.
Kayakers had a blast sharing the shores with marine iguanas and sea turtles and watching boobies and pelicans plunge diving to catch fish.
We also visited the grottos where the Galápagos fur seals were waiting for us.
This was a spectacular day in paradise.
