The following post features student writing.
Our last few days in the Galápagos have been incredible! Last Monday we woke up early for our flight from Quito. We’d spent the previous night in a really nice hostel near the Quito airport. Our guide company for the Galápagos gave us each a duffel bag as our only bag we could bring on the flight (aside from a backpack). We left the rest of our stuff behind in the hostel, where we will be returning the last night of the trip. After a few hours in the air we touched down on Santa Cruz Island and disembarked right onto the tarmac. We went through some Customs screenings, since what you bring in and out of and in between the islands is very closely monitored here to prevent humans affecting the individual ecosystems. We then met our guide here, Pablo, and hopped in a van to take to the other side of the island, stopping on the way to look at a huge sinkhole.
In the main town on Santa Cruz island we had a delicious lunch and then took a two-and-a-half hour ride on a big speedboat to Isabela Island, the biggest, seahorse-shaped island, formed in this manner by five individual volcanoes, as we soon learned. All tired from the travel day, we got settled at our hostel on the island and went to the beautiful beach right behind the hostel. At this point we had already seen several land and marine iguanas, a finch, several sea lions lounging on benches (which we’ve found they often do), and a ton of light-footed crabs, and we’d also admired the beautiful lava rock shores all of the islands here have.
The next morning we went to Isabela Island’s tortoise breeding center. Pablo told us all about the two main kinds of tortoises on the islands, along with some dramatic stories about a rescue mission to save a species of a tortoise living on the side of a volcano during an explosion. In the afternoon we went in pairs of two on kayaks around the shore, maneuvering through a narrow lava rock channel and observing Galápagos penguins, as well as a large sting ray. We then walked over to another part of the shore for a bit of snorkeling. The snorkeling was incredible — we got up close to countless beautiful fish, and we even saw a huge sea turtle, which I had the immense pleasure of swimming alongside for perhaps two whole minutes! We returned to our hostel and some people went to the beach again. It was a great day.
The following morning we left our hostel at 9 AM and drove to the base of the Sierra Negra volcano, ready for our six-hour hike. The hike wasn’t too difficult — a piece of cake for us now that we’d already hiked a mountain at super high altitude and were now much closer to sea level. The beating sun and long walk was entirely worth it when we got to see the massive crater, completely filled with volcanic rock from previous explosions and crater collapses. We then hiked over to the area of the most recent explosion of this active volcano (in 2005). We looked closely at the beautifully shimmering volcanic rocks and admired the holes in the ground formed from lava molding around cacti (of which we’ve seen A LOT). It was cool to see the sharp change from the other area we’d been walking in, where there was no vegetation. It was like walking on another planet! On the way back we ate bagged lunches the guide company had prepared for us.
Tired from a long day of walking, we returned to our hostel, though some of us still had the energy to go to the beach again. The next day was our last day on Isabela Island. A bunch of us woke up early to watch the sunrise on the beach, though we kind of missed the part where the sun rose. It was still nice, and after a little while we walked to a nearby restaurant to have a delicious breakfast of pancakes and French toast (the rest of the group stayed back and had the hostel breakfast). That day we took another long boat ride back to Santa Cruz island to continue our Galápagos adventure. We’re all doing great, and having an amazing time here, and we’re especially enjoying not having potato soup and rice for every meal!
See you soon!
– Elliot W.