Santiago Island
Today our explorations took place on Santiago Island, a very historical place where whalers and buccaneers used to come to get provisions for their journey. (The provisions were mainly giant tortoises.) Charles Darwin spent nine days exploring the same areas we did today, so we followed his footsteps and it felt like we were reading the chapter about the Galápagos on the voyage of the Beagle.
Espumilla beach, Buccaneer’s Cove, and Egas Port were our national park sites today. In order for us to show our guests the marvels of Santiago, we organized a kayaking outing, a deep water snorkeling, a Zodiac ride and two different nature hikes.
The dramatic northwestern coast of Santiago with giant cliffs was the highlight of the morning, a lot of blue footed boobies were spotted plunge diving, the water was crystal clear and during the snorkeling we could find big schools of fish and sea lions.
Our nature hikes were done through the native forest of incense tree, some of which were nearly thirty feet high. The fauna of Santiago is very diverse and perhaps the highlight is the fact one can walk very close to the Galápagos fur seals. It was our first time in the week we were this close!
The marine iguanas and the sea birds along the shoreline gave us quite a show. It was nice to be walking until the sunset and to have such good light for pictures. The day had amazing weather with clear blue skies and calmed waters, perfect for all the activities we arranged for our guests.
