Puerto Egas, Santiago
Our last afternoon in the Enchanted Islands was blessed with beautiful weather and spectacular skies, as we strolled along the rugged shoreline of Santiago, saying goodbye to all the outlandish creatures that by now had become so familiar to us. We said our fond farewells to the dragon-like marine iguanas, aptly named “Imps of Darkness” by Darwin during his passage through the islands, who rewarded us with territorial displays and aggressive behavior (to one another) in between snorts of salt. We took our final pictures of the ubiquitous Galapagos sea lions that had entranced us throughout the week with their poses and antics, their strong smell being the only deterrent to stealing away the adorable pups in our cases. Their smaller cousins, the Galapagos fur seals, were also out in numbers allowing us to get our first close look at this unique animal so out of place on the equator. Boobies and frigate birds soared overhead, whilst shorebirds such as plovers and oystercatchers scuttled along the receding coastline in search of exposed intertidal organisms.
As always, the amount to see was overwhelming and the setting along this particular coastline was especially dramatic, a reflection of the violent past of Santiago Island. Once an extremely active volcano, the terrain here was a mixture of dense basaltic lava and an overlying stretch of softer tuff stone, that is deposits of volcanic ash by the water’s edge. This soft rock along the exposed shore has been eroded by the wave action over the millennia, giving rise to swirling patterns and strange figures that stimulate our imagination, and towards the end of our walk we came across the gaping mouths of large lava tunnels left hollow when the flow poured into the ocean.
This afternoon we had the time to observe and listen at our leisure, thus letting all the impressions that make up Galapagos sink in, to become a part of our consciousness and to remain with us forever to conjure up at will when the stress of daily life gets too much.
Our last afternoon in the Enchanted Islands was blessed with beautiful weather and spectacular skies, as we strolled along the rugged shoreline of Santiago, saying goodbye to all the outlandish creatures that by now had become so familiar to us. We said our fond farewells to the dragon-like marine iguanas, aptly named “Imps of Darkness” by Darwin during his passage through the islands, who rewarded us with territorial displays and aggressive behavior (to one another) in between snorts of salt. We took our final pictures of the ubiquitous Galapagos sea lions that had entranced us throughout the week with their poses and antics, their strong smell being the only deterrent to stealing away the adorable pups in our cases. Their smaller cousins, the Galapagos fur seals, were also out in numbers allowing us to get our first close look at this unique animal so out of place on the equator. Boobies and frigate birds soared overhead, whilst shorebirds such as plovers and oystercatchers scuttled along the receding coastline in search of exposed intertidal organisms.
As always, the amount to see was overwhelming and the setting along this particular coastline was especially dramatic, a reflection of the violent past of Santiago Island. Once an extremely active volcano, the terrain here was a mixture of dense basaltic lava and an overlying stretch of softer tuff stone, that is deposits of volcanic ash by the water’s edge. This soft rock along the exposed shore has been eroded by the wave action over the millennia, giving rise to swirling patterns and strange figures that stimulate our imagination, and towards the end of our walk we came across the gaping mouths of large lava tunnels left hollow when the flow poured into the ocean.
This afternoon we had the time to observe and listen at our leisure, thus letting all the impressions that make up Galapagos sink in, to become a part of our consciousness and to remain with us forever to conjure up at will when the stress of daily life gets too much.
