Our second stop was the Galapagos Islands which are on many traveller's bucket lists. In our own cases we had been there already in 2018. This trip overlapped much of what we had done then, but also included some new hikes
We flew from Cartagena to Guayaquil, Ecuador to change planes for the flight west. We arrived in Baltra (where we departed from in 2018). We travelled by bus to the ferry to the main island of Santa Cruz. From there we traveled by bus to view the Galapagos Tortoises.
The Tortoises were on a farm near the height of land. We had lunch before taking a short walk to view them.
One of the females caught the attention of a large male who chased her down.
We left the Tortoises and headed to the port to catch a zodiac for the boat that would be home for the next 3 nights
Our first full day was spent on two islands separated by a small channel. Two hikes were planned. In addition, we originally planned to snorkel, but were reluctant to do so diving from a zodiac. So we took the alternative which was a glass bottom boat.
My first trip of the day was a hike to the top of Bartolomé Island. This required a transfer in the zodiac and then a walk up a platform with a whole lot of steps.
We brought snorkel gear, but were hoping swim from a beach. In Mexico in February we entered the water from a boat and my wife was not happy with that. Also issuing wet suits was a warning that this was going to be closer to the hypothermic experience of Feb than the warm tropical swim we had last time. Thus we bailed on snorkeling and instead tried out the glass bottom boat.
The experience exceeded expectations especially when we compared notes with the near hypothermic swimmers. The views were better than the picture indicates
The {too} late afternoon hike was in the lava field on Santiago Island which was on the west side of the bay. We only hiked a small portion of the field, but it was an interesting Pāhoehoe flow.
I did this same hike in 2018; however, at the time one of my knees was seriously messed up. So it was enjoyable to repeat this hike without every step hurting.
Overnight we crossed the equator to visit a small island in the north east corner of the chain. The central lagoon is a caldera of a long ago volcano.
This was another place we visited in 2018, and I still vividly recall the excruciating climb {for me} up Prince Phillips Steps. Since then, the park has replaced the scramble up rocks with actual steps { and I had my knee repaired}.
We spent the full day here which included a beach walk (which I did not do in 2018), another glass bottom boat ride, and then up a greatly improved Prince Phillips Steps to look at the bird colonies along the rim of the volcano.
Our first trip of the day was a landing on the beach and then a bird walk
Unfortunately none of the pictures are worth sharing
The trail take you along the crater rim past a number of bird colonies.