Bartolmé & Santiago Islands
This morning we had an early wake up in order to go to the top of Bartolomé and take advantage of the cooler early morning weather, since February is one of the hottest months of the year.
This place is popular for its magnificent moonlike landscape, where we can see all kinds and sizes of parasitic cones, such as spatter, cinder and tuff cones. Amazing view, but the climbing is a bit demanding, something like 114 meters high and around 369 steps.
After this we were rewarded with a great outdoor breakfast on the Teak deck, and just after we were given many choices to enjoy the beach. Some of us walked along the southern beach of Bartolomé where we had the opportunity to see a mating pair of turtles, it looked quite unnatural for them to be totally out of water, but allowed us to have a good view of what was going on. But just in case, one of the guides, Tony, drew a line along the beach to give them some privacy, and kept us at a discrete distance.
Back at the snorkeling beach some remained on land and relaxed, while the snorkelers ventured out in hopes of perhaps being able to see one more penguin underwater, others enjoyed the glass bottom boat that allowed them to have a good view of sting rays and eagle rays amongst other marine life.
Afternoon came and we arrived at Puerto Egas, so we rushed to the beach to do the very last snorkeling session but the water was murky because the hot current has just begun to hit the northern coasts of all the islands. However it didn’t keep some of us away from the water; there were some good sightings, such as white-tipped shark, octopi and more fishes.
Finally the heat came down and we hit the path to see the fur seals. Along the way we enjoyed the scenery, a fantastic combination of colors enhanced by the sun light, colors of dark lava, beautifully eroded tuff formations with some touches of green given by the vegetations surrounding the area. And that wasn’t all, we could also see marine iguanas with a different coloration than the ones seen before, matching the ground they are on, oystercatchers with a small chick, great blue herons, finches, Galápagos sea lions riding the waves, till we finally arrived to the grottos where we found two fur seals hiding between lava formations.
Back on board we simply admired the landscape and enjoyed our last sunset in the Galápagos.
This morning we had an early wake up in order to go to the top of Bartolomé and take advantage of the cooler early morning weather, since February is one of the hottest months of the year.
This place is popular for its magnificent moonlike landscape, where we can see all kinds and sizes of parasitic cones, such as spatter, cinder and tuff cones. Amazing view, but the climbing is a bit demanding, something like 114 meters high and around 369 steps.
After this we were rewarded with a great outdoor breakfast on the Teak deck, and just after we were given many choices to enjoy the beach. Some of us walked along the southern beach of Bartolomé where we had the opportunity to see a mating pair of turtles, it looked quite unnatural for them to be totally out of water, but allowed us to have a good view of what was going on. But just in case, one of the guides, Tony, drew a line along the beach to give them some privacy, and kept us at a discrete distance.
Back at the snorkeling beach some remained on land and relaxed, while the snorkelers ventured out in hopes of perhaps being able to see one more penguin underwater, others enjoyed the glass bottom boat that allowed them to have a good view of sting rays and eagle rays amongst other marine life.
Afternoon came and we arrived at Puerto Egas, so we rushed to the beach to do the very last snorkeling session but the water was murky because the hot current has just begun to hit the northern coasts of all the islands. However it didn’t keep some of us away from the water; there were some good sightings, such as white-tipped shark, octopi and more fishes.
Finally the heat came down and we hit the path to see the fur seals. Along the way we enjoyed the scenery, a fantastic combination of colors enhanced by the sun light, colors of dark lava, beautifully eroded tuff formations with some touches of green given by the vegetations surrounding the area. And that wasn’t all, we could also see marine iguanas with a different coloration than the ones seen before, matching the ground they are on, oystercatchers with a small chick, great blue herons, finches, Galápagos sea lions riding the waves, till we finally arrived to the grottos where we found two fur seals hiding between lava formations.
Back on board we simply admired the landscape and enjoyed our last sunset in the Galápagos.
