Bartolomé & Santiago

A great day rises on the horizon and here is where many of us got ready to disembark at the most visited island of the archipelago. Bartolomé gives us a unique impression when for very first time you dream of lunar landings and you finally find something close to that reality.

Geology not common to the rest of the Galápagos is found here; plants like tiquilia, and lava cactus dominate the sterile ashes and sharp rocks where for a long time no other vegetation was able to colonize. The beginning of adapting to the environment, the first step in the evolutionary process!
At the top of these 320 feet of altitude, the volcano gives our hikers the greatest view of the archipelago including Sullivan Bay across the channel, which is the youngest lava flow of Santiago Island. But time really matters when there’s more to do, so we ran back to the National Geographic Polaris for a nice breakfast to fuel ourselves with more energy, so necessary for walking along the beach and snorkeling.

Across Bartolomé a walk of 4 minutes is enough to observe the whitetip reef sharks and sea turtles that are very active in this nesting area; where many of those are coming back to the same place where they were hatched. Snorkeling with them is another experience in these rich waters. We knew that the penguins found at Pinnacle rock went out to fish and our guests just followed them.

Later on Santiago Island, well known as James by its English name, our guests made a unusual walk to an inactive parasitic cone where the ocean water percolates through the soil and fills the bottom, creating an ideal place for the development of salt pans. Four miles round-trip of intense hiking is tiring, but what a great experience to reach the end; the pink water of this place transforms everything here.

The walk along the shore of James Bay was great for those who wanted to find more wildlife; the sea lions, fur seals, wandering tattlers, and oystercatchers are almost always around. For an interesting end, the sunset turned orange.

There is always a place in our dreams where things are perfect, and probably this day was something like that.