Skip to main content

San Cristobal

The Galapagos Islands lie in the Pacific Ocean west of South America and right on the equator. They belong to Ecuador who carefully administer the islands, with a strong focus on conservation. This means that there is a lot of regulation (and associated costs) involved in visiting. However it's worth it, particularly to see the unique and plentiful wildlife and the amazing landscapes.


Choosing a land based island hopping approach in preference to the extremely expensive ship based trips, our visit to the Galapagos commenced on San Cristobal island, where we spent four nights. San Cristobal houses the capital of the Galapagos Puerto Baquerizo Moreno, however it is not actually the largest or the most populated island of the group. The first thing to get used to was playing "dodge the sea lions" who happily lie around the docks and beachside buildings heedless of humans.

One of the highlights of visiting San Cristobal is a day tour circumnavigating the island by boat. I was not looking forward to it as I was feeling pretty exhausted, having trouble with the heat and Eric was not so well.

The trip took us first to Rosa Blanca beach. We were invited to snorkel in a lagoon just back from the beach. It was low tide and we saw a shark ‘nursery’ - part of a lagoon where some baby sharks were swimming. Our introduction to the lagoon we were to snorkel in was the sight of a ray.


As we snorkelled, or learned to snorkel in Samuel’s case, we saw a couple of turtles who swam so close one breathed in the middle of the group. There were myriad fish of all colours etc.  After wandering about the beach before getting back on the boat. 


The ride was unfortunately very choppy and Eric, who was already ill got sea sick along with most of the other tour group members. Samuel and I missed out although I did not feel so great.


After another beach stop where Samuel and Eric got out and I remained on the boat to avoid the harsh sun, we travelled on to Kicker rock. This is a huge rocky outcrop in the middle of the ocean which is renowned for it's great snorkelling. We all jumped out of the boat and Samuel held a life ring which the guide pulled to keep the group together. This was just incredible, we saw more turtles, and fish of every variety and size. Eric saw a couple of seals. It was the absolute highlight of the trip. Back on dry ground we struggled home slightly sunburnt but well pleased with what we’d seen. 

Eric in the water at Kicker rock - thankfully over the sea sickness

Kicker rock

The other three days spent on San Cristobal focussed more on the islands interior. On one day we hired a taxi to travel into the centre of the island and across to the other side where we saw an (extinct) volcano...…

And a tortoise sanctuary...
And a lovely beach...

Before long it was time to head back to the airport to head to our next island.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Inca Trail day 4

This was the day we would arrive at Macchu Picchu so we awoke with a keen sense of anticipation.   To celebrate the last day on the trail, somehow the chef had whipped up an enormous cake which was served after breakfast.  After a discussion with Marco about the likely weather over the next two days we agreed that it would be best to tour Macchu Picchu as soon as we arrived in mid afternoon rather than wait until tomorrow. Marco assured us that this would mean less crowds and better weather (he was right). We could see the backside of the mountain above Macchu Picchu in front of us as we started out.  Unlike the last two days, today was mainly downhill.  We would have to descend about 1,000 meters and judging by the first part of the morning walk, most of this would be on steep and slippery rocky steps. After alternating descents and traversing along steep hillsides through cloud forest and bamboo groves we reached the ruins of Intipata. Intipata was a very spectacular site w
2 comments
Read more

Santa Cruz

Unlike our first island hop, Isabela to Santa Cruz was done by boat (see the addendum below for my thoughts about inter island boat travel).  At least the early morning trip was a smooth one.  Luckily we had managed to book an apartment in Puerto Ayora which meant we could do some of our own catering for a change.  By the time we arrived we were slowing down some, we felt we'd seen much of the wildlife the islands offered and frankly, we were exhausted. So we didn't venture too far from Puerto Ayora. One nice place near town we did visit (Eric went twice) was Tortuga bay which was exactly what you would expect a tropical beach to look like.  In fact it had two beaches, one a surf beach and one a quiet cove where you could snorkel with barely a ripple.  There wasn't much wildlife here except a few Iguanas (and one turtle) but the warm water was great for a swim nevertheless. As with San Cristobal we took a taxi trip to the highlands, crawling in Lava tubes... Ama
1 comment
Read more

New York: National Museum of Mathematics

When we first came to New York we all wrote down where we wanted to go while we were here. All of us included the math museum (confirms our status as a family of total geeks) so that is where we headed today. On the way we went to the LEGO shop. There was plenty of great Lego art and some pretty cool sets that Samuel hadn't seen before.   The best part was the machine that used a palm print to generate your Lego avatar. Eric: Check out the six pack. Not sure where they got the toupee from though. Samuel is Johnny Depp? Amazingly accurate this one. The famous Flatiron building A nd the math museum? Of course we enjoyed it! It was all interactive with loads of old and new problems to solve. We even got to use maths in an artistic way.  Tessellating Samuel and Eric were most entranced by a floor exhibit which changed periodically but had a range of practical problems. The museum was well populated in the morning with group
2 comments
Read more