Bartolome & Santiago Islands

It is six in the morning, we wake up and get ready for a walk, our destination was the top of Bartolome Island. We looked trough the windows from the ship we had a breathtaking view of different types of volcanic cones that were fully lighted by the sunrise.

We set foot on the island and it seems like our mind is playing tricks on us. Because this deserted island looks like another planet, we could easily go back home and tell our friends that we were on Mars and they would believe it just looking at the pictures of this island.

All of us were so amazed by the landscape of this island with the famous pinnacle rock, and we even got the chance to see some dolphins on the northern coast of the island. A large group of storm petrels that were surrounding us when we were in the Zodiac going back to the ship were so unafraid, and walking slowly on the water just trying to pick up some plankton with their tiny beaks.

After breakfast we wanted to do some aquatic activities so we went to a nice golden beach on the northern part of Bartolome. From here we could experience the wonderful marine ecosystem of the Galápagos and do some snorkeling; sharks, penguins and many tropical fish were seen in this wonderful spot.

After our well deserved lunch, we dropped anchor at Puerto Egas, a nice little bay located on the northwestern side of Santiago Island, a black sandy beach was waiting for all the snorkelers, they all had a great time snorkeling with sea turtles and sea lions.

Shortly afterwards we went on a hike along the coastal part of Puerto Egas, we had to walk partly on lava flows that were full of tidal pools, we could see some migratory birds, and also there was a sea lion fishing with a couple of Brown pelicans and Frigates that were waiting the right moment to get a free meal out of his mouth; the famous fur sea lions were seen also resting on the lava.

When we were about to finish we could see the sun setting close to the volcanoes of Isabela Island on the horizon and many mobula rays were jumping out of the water, a really surprising sighting were a couple of whale’s spouts just at the sun down.