Galapagos Island Hopping Adventure

Arrive at the Baltra airport just north of Santa Cruz. Meet with your naturalist guide who will help you with your transfer to your hotel. You will travel by bus to Itabaca Channel, followed by a 5-minute ferry ride to Santa Cruz Island. You transport will then take you south to the town of Puerto Ayora. You will visit the Primicias Ecological Reserve while en route, through the island’s highlands. This stop will allow you to observe Galapagos giant tortoises in the wild and walk through lava tunnels before having lunch at a local restaurant.\ In the afternoon, you will arrive in Puerto Ayora, where you’ll have leisure time for exploring the town. You will be checked-in at a selected hotel and can enjoy a welcome dinner at a local restaurant. Visit the famous Charles Darwin Station. This facility includes an information center, a museum, a library and a tortoise breeding station. You get to meet with the park rangers, managers and volunteers who make tremendous efforts to preserve this UNESCO World Heritage Site. At the tortoise breeding center you can see various subspecies being prepared for reintroduction into their natural habitats.

Today you have can visit the Floreana Island to the South of Santa Cruz. (see the optional visits below)
Floreana Island
(approximately 2 hours). Just off the coast of Floreana, we’ll visit Enderville Islet to observe colonies of sea birds such as blue-footed boobies, masked boobies, and frigate birds. We’ll continue our trip to the nearby Champion islet, where we’ll snorkel with sharks, rays, sea lions, a variety of colourful fish, and other impressive marine fauna. In the afternoon we’ll enjoy lunch in Floreana’s port town, Puerto Velasco Ibarra. After lunch we’ll visit the island’s highlands, to a visitors site called “Asilo de Paz” to observe giant tortoises and land birds such as Darwin’s finches, vermillion flycatchers, and learn about the island’s native vegetation. Later we’ll hike along a trail that will lead us to the famous caves of Floreana that were once used for shelter by the first colonists
Bartolome Island
Upon arriving on Bartolome Island, you will go up to a lookout point where you’ll be able to admire the spectacular panorama of Sullivan Bay and the famous “Pinnacle Rock.” The beaches at the foot of Pinnacle Rock boast some of the finest snorkeling spots, where you can discover a marvelous underwater world and will have a good chance of finding gently gliding turtles. On the beaches beneath Pinnacle Rock it’s quite possible to meet up with one of the speedy little Galapagos Penguins — the second smallest penguin in the world, with heights of around 25 centimeters (10 inches) — as well as the harmless white-tipped reef shark.

Breakfast at the hotel (included). In the morning the adventure starts with a trip to “Tortuga Bay,” lined with white- sand beach and bathed in beautiful emerald-green ponds ornamented with thousands of colorful fish. It’s also common to see turtles, sea lions, marine iguanas and pelicans. After lunch, we’ll set out on a trip to Isabela Island aboard a powerboat (taking about 21 /2 hours, depending on sea conditions). Upon arrival, you will check in at the Hotel Wooden House and still have plenty of time to leisurely explore the town by bicycle. Return to selected hotel for the night.

After breakfast, you will head out for the Sierra Negra Volcano. You’ll drive to the highlands of Isabela Island where you will start hiking up the volcano to the edge of its crater. Reaching up to around 1,500 meters (close to a mile high), and with an outer diameter of approximately 9 kilometers (6 miles), the Sierra Negra Volcano is the second largest lava dome in the world. You will hike along the cone to the resting place in the northeast. You will have lunch at “Campo Duro,” which is a beautiful organic farm whose owners prepare their food with vegetables and fruits grown locally on the farm. You’ll enjoy a delicious meal cooked on a lava-rock grill, and after lunch you can take a walk among the fruit trails or just take a nap in one of the hammocks there, where you can breathe the fresh clean air under a huge mango tree. In the afternoon, you’ll visit “Las Tintoreras” by taking a short boat trip across Isabela Island’s harbour. After passing sea lions bathing in the sun and pelicans resting on fishing boats, you’ll reach the small island, where you will take a relaxed walk through the bizarre lava landscape with its well-populated colonies of marine iguanas. A colony of sea lions is also located here, and it’s common to see white-tipped reef sharksresting in the water near the shore. The views here are ones you will treasure for the rest of your life! The treacherous black lava field, the emerald green sea, the green mangroves, and the cloud-capped volcanoes of Isabela Island create an afternoon backdrop you’re not likely to forget.

After breakfast, depending on your flight time, you will either fly to Quito and home or on to Peru to join our extension program.
Meals: Breakfast