The final field trip of the quarter was quite the vacation! However, like all of our field trips, we learned a lot while having tons of fun too! On Monday our guide Whitman picked us up at the airport on San Cristobol Island and we moved into our hotel at the “Casa de Laura” about a block from the beach. We walked on the beach in the port town, which is filled with sea lions! After lunch at La Playa restaurant, also owned by Whitman, we rode bikes to La Loberia beach to snorkel and see huge land iguanas and more sea lions. We rode a bit more around the cute port town and devoured more delicious seafood that night.
On Tuesday we had breakfast and made our way to the Galapagos National Park visitor center and the Frigate Bird Hill. The views over the ocean were incredible and shortly after we were in the water once again, snorkeling among multitudes of fish and neat rock formations. We cruised in a little boat back across the port bay and stopped briefly to jump in the water and see a sunken ship.
After lunch we hopped in a taxi and drove from the west to east across the island to visit a Giant Land Tortoise Breeding Center. The turtles can live for up to 200 years and they are in danger of going extinct, so this center is incubating eggs and protecting the young turtles until they are 5 years old so that the invasive black rats can’t eat them. We got to see some very young turtles and some very old ones as well, and they are the ideal species to observe because they move so slowly! Afterwards we went up to a viewpoint and looked out across 1000 km of empty water to the Ecuadorian mainland. We returned to the port for some relaxing at the hotel and another spectacular dinner at La Playa.
Wednesday morning we got up early to get on a boat to Santa Cruz Island. Our stay on Santa Cruz was very brief, we visited the Charles Darwin Institute, which does research and works on conservation projects. We got to see more Giant Tortoises there from many different islands (all endemic species) and more iguanas! We ate lunch with two guides from the Institute and it was the best meal yet: fresh grilled tuna!
We boarded another boat in the afternoon and this one took us to Isabela Island, where we would be spending the rest of our time. After disembarking, we walked along the port town’s impressive white sand beach, which stretched out for more than 2 miles. In the evening we ran and swam on the main beach and ate dinner with two travelers we met, a crazy woman from Houston and a very nice Parisian man. What a contrast!
The next morning we started our busiest day in the Galapagos with a hike to Sierra Negra, the second widest volcanic crater in the world! On the way back to the port we stopped to see pink flamingos and we walked through an incredible mangrove swamp. After lunch we got on a small boat and cruised around the bay to see penguins, white tipped reef sharks and more iguanas, and we snorkeled with turtles and had sea lions swimming around us in circles! They like to play a game where they swim by your side, then loop around and pop back up right in front of you before darting at the last moment underneath you. We got off the boat and hit up one last snorkeling spot before heading back to the hotel. Our Thanksgiving meal consisted of grilled fish, fried plantains, rice, lentils, fruit and of course fresh juice, so I didn’t even miss the traditional food at all! That night I spent some time on the beach just gazing at the stars and enjoying the tranquility.
Friday morning I woke up before 5 am to enjoy the last of the beach before we had to get on a boat at 6 am to return to Santa Cruz. We had a delicious breakfast in the town there and as we drove to the airport we pleaded with Whitman to let us stay. But after saying goodbye, we boarded the plane and less than 2 hours later we were back in Quito.
