Galapagos - Santiago Island

This morning we woke up moored by Santa Cruz Island, the one that I started on. But this time we were on the other side of the island, in an area that can't be accessed by land. The sun was out for a change so the water looked extra beautiful, bright turquoise against the white sand and black volcanic rocks. We hiked though the island, past some basking marine iguanas and brackish lagoons with flamingoes, to an arid area more inalnd. This area was one of the main sites for land iguana conservation. Contrasting to the black of the marine iguanans, land iguanas are a beautiful gold colour. We saw some pretty large ones just chilling in the sun as we hiked. We eventually made it to the top of the hill with a nice view of the surrounding area, before heading back to the boat.

Later in the morning we went on another snorkelling expedition, where we again saw loads of fish and interesting coral. There was a particularly friendly group of sea lions that came out to play with us, often swimming right up to take a good look at us as we looked back at them.

After lunch we set sail for Santiago Island, which is characterised by its more recent volcanic eruptions and lavaflows. The most recent eruption on the island was around 1904-06. We went for a hike on the lava flow on "spaghetti lava" which has the most interesting patterns that looks like bundles of string. This is in contrast to what they call "ow ow lava", which was more explosive in formation and is very spikey and painful to walk on, hence its name. Later that evening we shared some wine on the top deck of the boat to celebrate the sun coming out before dinner.Read more