San Cristobal Island
The Galápagos Islands are made up of 13 major islands, several islets and thousands of rocks. Every place is unique and different. Today we visited San Cristobal Island and though if it was our last day we saw a lot of endemic species that were newly added to our list. In the morning we disembarked at Punta Pitt, a green beach surrounded by tuff cones was our landing site. This unique scene is home of several Galápagos sea lions, a species of mockingbird that lives nowhere else in the world, and a unique lava lizard.
We climbed one of the cones to enjoy the breeze and a beautiful view. The summit was draped in a red color lent by the Galápagos Carpetweed, the scenery was amazing. And we found something else — birds that were taking advantage of the breeze as well…red-footed bobbies! This was the only species of bobbies we hadn’t yet seen. It was very exciting to see them flying, but it was even better to find them nesting on the cliff.
After our walk we enjoyed of the green beach and the turquoise waters in company of playful young sea lions. It was so amazing to see our youngest guests interacting with the sea lions puppies. In the sea playing like that it seemed that they spoke the same language.
The Zodiacs took us to explore the shore of a small islet near Punta Pitt where birds were abundant. In the afternoon we went to Kicker Rock. Our last snorkeling outing couldn’t have been better — over 20 Galápagos sharks, one silky shark, hammerhead sharks, and white-tip reef sharks were our companions for this last time in the underwater world. We came back to circumnavigate Kicker Rock and the last surprise came! Waved albatross were spotted!
Even if this was our last day, the islands didn’t stop surprising us until the last minute, just before sunset two Bryde’s whales were spotted. What a way to end our adventure!
