After our short time in Quito, it was time to head to the Galapagos Islands for the first big adventure of our trip – an eight day cruise on the Solaris.

First – a quick note about the photographs in this post. They are not the photos I was hoping to use. Our AirBnB apartment in Lima was burglarized, and among the things stolen were the hard drives containing all the photos I had taken with my DSLR until that point, including probably a couple of thousand pics from the Galapagos cruise and our time in the islands afterwards. Fortunately I took some photos with my phone to post on social media, so those are what you see in this post. I’ll tell the story of the burglary in more detail when I post about our time in Lima.

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Getting to the Galapagos Islands

Traveling to the Galapagos Islands involves a few more steps than most other tourist destinations. The Ecuador government has a lot of controls in place with the aim being to keep the Galapagos Islands pristine. This started at the Quito airport where we had to go through a special immigration checkpoint (and pay USD 20 each) for a transit control card. Then we went through a special customs inspection enforcing the very strict rules about what can be taken to the islands. After the short flight to the islands, the somewhat complicated process (and the cash requirements) continued. The biggest outlay was the USD 100 per person national park fee.

The next complications are caused by the fact that the airport for Santa Cruz is actually on a small island just to the north of Santa Cruz itself. This meant that getting to our hotel involved a USD 5 (very short) bus ride to a channel where we took a USD 1 boat ride across to the other side. There we loaded up into one of the pickup trucks used as taxis in the islands and paid USD 25 to get to our hotel. At least Ecuador uses US Dollars as their currency, which made it easier to keep track of all these transactions.

Santa Cruz

We had one night in Puerto Ayora on the island of Santa Cruz planned before joining our cruise the following day. Our flight from Quito was originally scheduled for the morning, however, a schedule change meant that we arrived late in the afternoon, so we had a lot less time than anticipated in Puerto Ayora on our arrival day. This wasn’t really a problem, as we planned to spend a couple more days on Santa Cruz after our cruise.

When we finally made it through the complicated process described above, we checked in to the Hostal Paraiso. Despite the fact that I had booked this place simply because it was the cheapest triple room I could find, it turned out to be a good budget option, clean and in a good location. It also had a covered patio with hammocks, which Lachlan enjoyed.

With a couple of hours of daylight left, we went for a walk and immediately saw some wildlife.

We stopped for the obligatory Instagram shot at the “Santa Cruz” sign.

Next, we headed for the famous Puerto Ayora fish market. There wasn’t much happening, so we didn’t see any entertaining antics from animals trying to steal fish scraps. We did see our first sea lion of the trip.

For our first Galapagos Islands dinner, we went to the restaurant street near our hotel. Restaurants line the street and they close the road and fill it with tables. After reviewing our options, we decided to stretch the budget a bit for a seafood platter. We managed to eat most of it.

Our Galapagos Cruise Begins

The next morning we had to be back at the airport at 10am to meet our Galapagos cruise. We thought we had left in plenty of time, but had to wait for nearly half an hour for a boat across the channel. Fortunately, we managed to get a phone call through to the office of the cruise company to tell them we were on our way, so they waited for us.

Once we were finally on board, the naturalist guide (Maria) gave the group a safety briefing and explained the national park rules. Then it was time for our first lunch aboard the boat. After lunch we headed off for our first activities, on Mosquera Island.

It wasn’t long before we were in the water for our first snorkel of the trip. Snorkeling along a rock wall, we saw a lot of colorful fish. Some members of the group saw a white-tipped shark, but we weren’t so lucky. After snorkeling, we went for a walk along a very nice white sand beach. We saw a lot of sea lions who like to laze around on the beach here. This first afternoon was a good introduction to the islands.

After dinner, some sharks and sea lions were chasing fish attracted by the light at the back of the boat. They put on quite a show for us. One of the sea lions jumped up onto the boat. At the time we went to bed, the crew were trying to encourage it to leave, as it’s prohibited to transport wildlife from one island to another. We later heard that they had to physically lift him off the boat before we weighed anchor.

Genovesa Island – Morning

After a pretty rough overnight passage, early the next morning we awoke to find ourselves anchored in the middle of the bay formed by a collapsed volcanic caldera. There were cliffs almost 360 degrees around us, teeming with bird life. It was an incredible sight. One of the reasons we chose this particular Galapagos cruise was to see Genovesa Island. On first glance it seemed to live up to the hype.

After breakfast we got into the dinghies and headed to the beach.

First, Maria led us on a walk along the beach. There were hundreds, maybe thousands of birds. We had our first sight of the iconic boobies, both the red-footed and Nazca varieties.

However, the highlight of the walk was seeing the frigate birds with their red throat pouches puffed up on full display. We were lucky to be visiting at the right time of year to see this courting ritual. This is how the male frigate birds try to attract a mate.

As well as the birds we saw some sea lions resting in the shade.

After our walk we snorkeled from the beach. It was nice to get in the water because we got quite warm walking in the sun. We saw plenty of fish and some rays. Just before we headed back to the boat for lunch a couple of sea lions put on a display for us, playing around in the shallow water right in front of us.

Genovesa Island – Afternoon

After lunch and some rest time on the boat, it was time for our afternoon activities. First, we snorkeled from the dinghies near the caldera wall. We saw some bigger fish, and also had our first experience swimming with sea lions. Little did we know how common this would be on future snorkels on our Galapagos cruise.

For our final activity for the day, we climbed Prince Philip’s Steps to the top of the cliffs. After making the steep climb, we saw an amazing number of Nazca and red-footed boobies, and learned about their behavior. We were also lucky enough to see the short-eared owl. Maria had told us that we may not see any, but we managed to see three of them. Heide showed off her wildlife-finding skills by spotting one at quite a distance away from the path.

As a result of this very full program of activities for the day, everyone was ready for dinner and then an early night. We left Genovesa Island at 8:30pm for our next destination. With another rough passage ahead, the best place to be was in bed, although the rocking and rolling of the boat did make it a bit difficult to sleep.

South Plaza Island

We woke up anchored near South Plaza Island. I got up to see sunrise, and watched the National Geographic Expeditions ship pull in alongside us. It has to be a good sign on a Galapagos cruise when you’re in the same place as National Geographic. After breakfast we made a dry landing (i.e. directly onto steps or a dock without having to wade through the water) onto South Plaza Island. We immediately saw the two main things we were there to see – cactus and land iguanas.

We continued on to the island’s highest point, where a cliff top gave us a view over the ocean. Looking down we could see eagle rays in the water and many birds feeding on fish that were being washed into the cliffs by the wave action. In the other direction we could see back to where the Solaris was anchored.

We also saw more land iguanas and a marine iguana who had climbed all the way up the cliff.

At the furthest point of our walk we saw a bachelor sea lion colony. It was amazing to see them on top of the cliffs so high above the water.

Completing the loop trail on the lower part of the island we walked across some shiny white rock. Although this looks like marble, it’s actually sea lion poop, polished by the sea lion bodies rubbing on it as they move across the rocks.

Santa Fe Island

Back on the boat we navigated to our afternoon destination, Santa Fe Island. While we were traveling a number of frigate birds flew along with us, hitching a ride on the updrafts from the boat.

Our first Sante Fe activity was snorkeling off the dinghies. We saw lots of fish, while others saw a shark and played with sea lions. Lachlan and I were behind the main group so unfortunately didn’t see either. After snorkeling, we took a dinghy ride along a rocky shore to see baby sea lions playing in the protected shallow water.

The final activity for the day was a wet landing on beach full of sea lions. We had to carefully make our way through sea lions on the beach, then put on hiking shoes for the rocky trail. This was a bit tricky, because there were no benches. We had to find a rock or fallen tree to sit on while drying our feet and putting on socks and shoes.

On our walk on Santa Fe we saw some very tall cactus “trees”. They adapted to this height as a defense against the tortoises that ate them, although now unfortunately there are no more tortoises on Santa Fe Island.

As we headed back to the boat after another full day of activities, it was hard not to be impressed by the variety of ecosystems and environments we had seen on just the first few days of our Galapagos cruise.

Kicker Rock

The next morning we woke up and for a change we weren’t anchored. Instead we were circling around a huge rock formation jutting out of the ocean. This was Kicker Rock, one of the many impressive geological features of the Galapagos Islands.

We circled for a while as the sun came up, which gave us a chance to photograph Kicker Rock from various angles.

The official itinerary for our Galapagos cruise included snorkeling at Kicker Rock. However, the itinerary didn’t include an opportunity to see the famous Galapagos tortoises. This wasn’t an issue for us because we had planned extra days in the islands after our cruise, which would give us a chance to see them. However, most of the other passengers had joined the cruise straight from the airport and were heading straight to the airport after their cruise. This meant that they wouldn’t get a chance to see the iconic tortoises.

The end result of this was that we all agreed to skip the snorkeling at Kicker Rock and add a visit to the tortoise breeding center on San Cristobal Island. After a few circles around Kicker Rock we set course for San Cristobal.

San Cristobal Island

We arrived on San Cristobal Island mid-morning and got on a bus to head to the tortoise breeding center. This is in the island’s highlands, and the weather changed to mist, then rain as we gained altitude. Happily, it wasn’t raining when we got to the to tortoise breeding center.

At the tortoise breeding center we saw some larger tortoises being fed, then saw the very tiny young tortoises in their special enclosures. These tortoises live a long time, with an average lifespan of more than 100 years. It’s a little disconcerting to look at a bunch of tiny tortoises and realize that some of them will be alive after every person currently alive on earth is dead.

On that sobering thought we headed to the airport to drop off some passengers who had signed up for a shorter cruise than the our full 8 day option. We had some free time in town after that, spending it in a cafe drinking iced coffee and taking the opportunity to get online and check e-mail after a few days totally disconnected from the internet.

Back on board we had lunch, then had some free time waiting for some new passengers to join us. Lachlan and I passed some time playing Jenga. This isn’t easy on a moving boat, and inevitably there was controversy when the boat movement took a tower down. I maintain that this should mean a draw, while Lachlan’s position is that it should count as a loss. You can probably guess whose turn it was when the tower fell.

Interpretation Center

After the new passengers joined us we headed back to San Cristobal to the interpretation center. We saw displays about the islands’ formation and the climate, current and geography that created the conditions that resulted in the unique flora and fauna here. There were also exhibits about the history of human presence in the islands.

After the interpretation center we had some more free time in town. We used this very wisely by finding an awesome hole-in-the-wall place that served amazing empanadas. We followed this up with ice cream and some time watching sea lions hunt for food in the harbor.

The half-way point of our Galapagos cruise also marked a week into our Big Trip. So far it feels like a regular vacation (although to a particularly amazing destination). I wonder how long it will take to feel like we’re traveling, not just vacationing?

Galapagos Cruise – to be continued

See the next post to read about the second half of our Galapagos Cruise …