Galápagos, Ecuador🦭
The Galápagos Islands are a natural phenomenon located off the east coast of Ecuador. Many people travel all the way to Ecuador just so they can experience the natural beauty of the islands. The abundance and variety of flora and fauna both on land and under the sea, coupled with it being the birthplace of Darwinism, makes it one of the most unique places on the planet. There is a variety of options for exploring the Galápagos Islands, with a range of different budgets. The most backpacker friendly form (still expensive) is to fly yourselves to Santa Cruz Island, base yourselves there in a hostel for example, and take day boats to cross between islands. The most popular way however, is to book a cruise, which is what Ned’s parents booked for the four of us. There’s a dizzying amount of tour company’s, vessel sizes and routes available to choose from, so make sure you do your research for which islands you‘d like to visit. We went with the 8 day cruise around the North Islands with Nemo II cruises. Each day consisted of similar time schedules. Breakfast was at 7am, lunch at 12pm, dinner at 7pm every day. In between meals we would have either one or two activities, which included island walks and water activities, like snorkelling or kayaking, before relaxing in the evening watching the sunset. Below is a day by day itinerary of what our cruise looked like.
Day 1 - North Seymour Island
Day one included, getting our flight from Quito to Santa Cruz. The company we booked the cruise with organised everything for us, including our flights and transport. All we needed to do was catch our flight and make sure we had $200 USD in cash (per person), which was for the National Park entry.
Once in Santa Cruz, we were collected by our tour guide Leonidas (legend), met our fellow cruise mates and taken to the boat dock, which was a ten minute bus from the airport. Once on board Nemo II, we had a delicious lunch getting to know the other cruise members and staff before getting ready for our first activity of the trip. This was a two hour walk around North Seymour Island, where we could see a variety of wildlife. We saw land iguanas, blue footed booby’s, frigate birds, marine iguanas and Galapagos sea lions. Perfect start to the trip!
After every afternoon activity, we are offered a delicious mixture of snacks and drinks. Depending on the activity we did, the drinks could either be refreshing ice tea and fruit smoothies or a hot chocolate to warm us up. We then spend the next hour or so watching the sunset and playing cards before having dinner and trying not to think about how choppy it was.
Day 2 - Isla San Cristobal
Day two involved getting up early for breakfast, before getting ready for a morning walk on Isla Lobos to see more wildlife.
We then had our first snorkelling session around Isla Lobos, where we were lucky to swim with turtles, sea lions and watch marine iguanas eat sea algae from the rocks (only place on the planet you can do this).
After lunch we spent the afternoon at Cerro Bruno, this small gorgeous beach which had the bluest waters, perfect for cooling down in. Make sure to cover up or wear a lot of suncream as the sun here is no joke and you can easily get very burnt! In the evening we sailed around Kicker Rock during sunset and had some drinks before having dinner with everyone.
Day 3 – Isla Española
Day three starts with a morning walk on another gorgeous beach called Gardner Bay on Isla Española. We spent an hour walking along the beach, spotting different birds and sea lions. We then cruised to Isla Gardner, a small island off Isla Española where we went kayaking.
After lunch we headed around Isla Española to another spot Punta Suárez for our afternoon walk. Luckily, on the way we were graced with a huge pod of bottlenose dolphins who followed our boat for nearly the entire journey. It was honestly amazing.
We spent the next two hours walking around Punta Suárez, one of the most stunning landscapes we visited on the entire cruise. This island is also one of the only places to see the Galápagos Albatross. We were told by our guide that in January most albatross have left the island to migrate, and we would be lucky if we saw one. That made it even more amazing when we saw both adult and baby albatross on the island, Ned managed to capture a good snap of an adult in flight!
After the walk around the island, we were given snacks and a fruit smoothie to start the evening! We all had a cooling down dip, jumping off the front of the boat before getting ready for dinner and watching yet another gorgeous sunset.
Day 4 - Isla Floreana
Day four started off with a morning walk around Floreana. Here we got to see flamingoes and turtles who had come to shore to lay their eggs. We then went on our first snorkelling session of the day where we saw turtles, sharks and all kinds of fish.
After lunch we went kayaking around the island to the hot spot for turtles where we saw so many popping their heads up to breathe. We then went snorkelling and spent the next couple of hours swimming with the giant turtles. Around twenty, all different sized, turtles surrounded us and it was the perfect way to end the day.
We spent the afternoon on the front of the deck where we were once again greeted by a humongous pod of bottlenose dolphins. As far as the eye could see there were dolphins jumping and playing in the water, and they followed our boat for almost 20 minutes doing tricks for our amusement, it was magical. We then watched another beautiful sunset, before having dinner and stargazing from the top deck.
Day 5 - Isla Santa Cruz
We spent our fifth day entirely on land on the island of Santa Cruz. We first went to El Chato Ranch, where saw the famous Giant Tortoises. We walked around the whole ranch, learning about their history and eating habits before exploring the three small caves they had. In the second cave, we were lucky to see a Barn Owl, who only comes out at night, so is very rare to see one during the day. This was a huge highlight of the trip, as Ned’s father specialises in Barn Owl sculptures so seeing one for him was a huge win.
We then had lunch back on the boat before going to the Charles Darwin Research Station to learn more about the Giant Tortoises and their conservation efforts. We then got the opportunity to explore more of Santa Cruz before getting the dingy back to Nemo II.
We spent the next couple of hours going for an evening dip, watching the sunset from the port and having drinks on the top deck. We also had a surprise at the front of the boat with a sea lion joining us for the evening.
Day 6 - Santa Fé Island
Day six started with a long walk around Santa Fé Island, which was pretty cool seeing the thousands of cacti and sea lions. We also saw a species of land iguana only found on this small island, showcasing Darwinism further.
After the walk we had a long snorkelling session, swimming with baby sea lions. They were so friendly and playful swimming around us without a care in the world.
After lunch we went for our second walk around South Plaza Island, which was the most colourful island we had seen. Full of green cactuses and bright red/orange ground flora contrasting with the blue sea, this was one of our favourite hikes. Once back on the boat we sailed towards Santiago, spotting more wildlife along the way before another delicious meal.
Day 7 - Isla Bartolomé
Day seven was our last full day on the cruise. After sailing throughout the night to Isla Bartolomé we started with a short morning walk to the lighthouse viewpoint. On the way to the viewpoint we stopped at the surrounding islands where we saw little Humboldt penguins! We only saw a few, but were very lucky in doing so as the colony here is very small. Once on the island, the walk to the top of the viewpoint included 372 wooden steps, where we then could see an incredible view of the surrounding islands and mountains.
After the walk we spent the rest of the day doing some kayaking and two snorkelling sessions, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. We were lucky to swim with a few penguins, a lot of white tip reef sharks, stingrays and sea lions. With a short break at lunch, we refuelled and were taught how to make Ecuadorean ceviche. Before our second snorkel we did a short walk around Chinese Hat Island before getting back on the boat for some snacks and drinks.
Our last evening together, was spent watching another gorgeous sunset, having drinks on top deck and saying a big thank you to the crew and Leonidas for looking after us for the whole week. We also had a few drinks and cocktails before the evening ended and we sailed back to Santa Cruz.
Day 8 - Santa Cruz
Even though it is an eight day cruise, day eight actually involves our transfer and flights back to the capital. We all woke up early, had one last breakfast together before getting everything packed up and ready for drop off at 10am. We were then transferred from Santa Cruz to the airport where we caught our flight back to Quito.
