San Cristobal Island
After a long navigation, we arrived at one of the oldest islands: San Cristobal. Located at the easternmost position of the archipelago, this island offers a distinctive landscape made of a group of extinct, eroded volcanoes and green beaches marked with dozens of sea turtle tracks. This was only the opening of our morning in Punta Pitt, the enigmatic place where red-footed boobies nest together.
After breakfast we headed to the beach of Punta Pitt; its green color comes from a high concentration of olivine, a semiprecious glassy mineral that our guests tried to find as soon we arrived. Walking inland the cliffs looked magnificent with eroded lines made as a result of intensive rainfalls during previous Niño years. Certainly our path was built on what had previously been a riverbed. We observed small loose rocks that some time ago were rolling with freshwater rivers coming down from the top of the cliffs. We imagined how similar this landscape is to the Rocky Mountains in the U.S.
We climbed up to a flat area, where the view was incredible; the National Geographic Islander looked small in the distance and a group of endemic vegetation captivated our attention, mainly the scalesias and Galápagos cup-leaf their succulent leaves gave us a good example of adaptive radiation in volcanic archipelagos. When we arrived to the cliffs, on the top of the palo santo trees we observed a group of red-footed boobies nesting; how different they looked compared to their relatives grasping on the branches.
After our walk, we took a Zodiac cruise along the coastline and islets in front of San Cristobal. On one of them we found many species of seabirds together: magnificent and great frigatebirds, swallow tailed gull, Nazca boobies, shearwaters and many others; it was a great experience seeing a group of different species sharing a small white rock indifferently.
In the afternoon our adventure continued with an incredible snorkeling outing along the shoreline of Leon Dormido, a group of rocks in the middle of the ocean. The weather conditions were perfect, great visibility and warm water; all was perfect including the last surprise that King Neptune had prepared for us: hammer head and Galápagos sharks, sea lions, sea turtles and many tropical fish captivated the attention of our guests. After snorkeling everybody enjoyed the beautiful landscape of the Leon Dormido and the beautiful sunset, observing as little by little the sun disappeared in the distance, all of us hoping to spot the enigmatic green flash. Good memories of this marvelous week and new friends that we are never going to forget.
