skip to main content

Wandering the World

Stories and tips from around the world.

Ecuador Day 10

Santiago and Bartolome

Breakfast was again at 07:00, as a navigation was planned for 07:30 to 11:00; though as it turned out the engines started up and we started to move at around 06:20.

After breakfast we decided to kill some time by packing our suitcases ready – we were unsure how much time we’d have in the evening so it seemed like a good idea. Not everything could be easily packed though due to some stuff being needed throughout the day.

Isla Santiago: Landscape of lava and desert

Our first excursion was 30 minutes earlier than planned so didn’t get much time to prepare. The first stop was Santiago which has a massive area of lava formations. It is a mostly barren landscape with ash and volcanic rock, with the only vegetation being a lone cactus and some scorpion weed.

Afterwards we headed back to the beach to swim and snorkel around Sullivan Bay. The water was amazingly clear and it was a great place for snorkelling and free-diving. Underwater we saw many species of fish and even saw Galapagos Penguins (basically a smaller version of the Humboldt penguin) and a sea lion swimming underwater. After what must have been about 30 minutes the rubbing of my fins against my sunburned feet was too much, but not long after everyone else decided to finish too.

Galápagos Penguin (Spheniscus mendiculus)

On the panga ride back we saw a young Galapagos penguin that was moulting it’s feathers on Bartolome island. On the boat we then saw a pair of pelicans and 3 Galapagos sharks circling the boat.

Isla Santiago

For the afternoon we headed over to Bartolome. To start with most people went to the beach but as I was already sunburned I opted to stay on the boat and read. Afterwards I joined then for a walk on Bartolome that was along a boardwalk with 370 steps. The best thing about it was how close you could get to Galapagos hawks. Apparently this area had also been used when filming Master and Commander.

Galapagos Hawk (Buteo galapagoensis)

To end the day we finished packing our suitcases ready for the following days flight back to Quito. It probably didn’t help that the boat by this time had started it’s 9 hour cruise back to Puerto Ayora. This made it particularly difficult to get things packed without them rolling across the cabin. That’s just part of the fun of being on a boat though!

Isla Bartolome at dusk

Tags: galapagos south america travel trips

Recent Trips

Hungary
Budapest is a city my sister has wanted to visit for several years as she thought "the buildings look cool". Having changed my mind about returning to Greece just yet, I decided this would be a good o…

Cyprus
My first trip to Cyprus had been for a half marathon race that never took place. It'd been postponed until 2022, but due to timings I decided to defer until the 2023 event as it'd work better that way…

Jordan
I've dreamt of visiting Petra since I'd learnt the place I'd seen watching Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade was a real place, and located in Jordan. It wasn't used as Petra in the film, but was the …

Italy
> “In Italy, for 30 years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly lo…

Guernsey
For my first trip of 2022, I was heading to the Bailiwick of Guernsey for a 36 mile ultra marathon around the island. As with any other trip to a new place, of course I'd try to get in as much tourism…

More Trips…

Recent Races

Hillingdon 20
After running this race last year, I thought: "never again". Hilly by name, hilly by nature, and 20 miles of it was just more than I felt was needed. However, after deciding to do GU36 one more time, …

High Performance London Half

Bramley 20

MK Winter Half Marathon

Nepal Runs Northolt 10K

More Running…


© David G. Paul