6-Day Galapagos Adventure

At the Baltra airport start the Island hopping in Galapagos, our staff will meet you and transfer you to the Hotel, located on Santa Cruz Island. After lunch we will have the first visit, to El Chato Reserve.
The highlands of Santa Cruz Island provide important attractions due to its climate and vegetation. This is a tropical rain forest offering a very different landscape than that of the lowlands. In the Santa Rosa sector, we will visit the El Chato Reserve, a reserve where the famous “Galapagos” giant tortoises live in the wild. You can watch the tortoises relaxing in El Chato lagoon. Also, this is where many of the island’s wild birds nest, such as finches, Vermilion Flycatcher, Cattle Egret and sometimes Galapagos Crake.
Our journey lets you see the huge Galapagos tortoises in their natural state. During the visit to this reserve we’ll also see a natural lava tunnel, which you can go through thanks to the soft lighting installed by the ranch’s owners.

After breakfast, we sail an hour to Santa Fe Island. From the yacht, we see on its huge cliffs a forest of giant cacti endemic to this island. In the calm, turquoise waters of the bay are colonies of sea birds, including pelicans, boobies and gulls, and a large number of sea lions. Snorkeling is ideal. You can swim with rays and tropical fish, and occasionally observe sea turtles. We will have lunch on board and then land on a beautiful, white-sand beach where we will have a relaxing time taking pictures and enjoying the Galapagos sun, before returning to the hotel.

Departure at 7:30 a.m. After breakfast, we board the yacht bound for Isabela Island, two hours navigation away. After arriving in Puerto Villamil, we visit the Flamingo Lagoon and have a moment to enjoy Isabela’s beautiful beach. From there, we head to the port for lunch at a local restaurant. Afterwards, we continue our journey aboard a fiberglass boat that will take us to visit the white-tip sharks (tintoreras), and the marine iguana and penguin colonies. Then we snorkel in the sector to observe tropical fish, sea turtles and sharks. Dinner.

On Isabela Island at 8:00 a.m., after breakfast, we climb Sierra Negra Volcano. It is the largest and one of the most active volcanoes of the islands. Its northern edge is usually covered with clouds and fog, allowing the growth of vegetation. This is one of the most important biological reserves in the world, and includes tortoises, iguanas and birds. The naturalist Charles Darwin studied them in the nineteenth century to write “On the Origin of Species.” Chico Volcano is located to the northeast of Sierra Negra Volcano, at an altitude of 860 m.a.s.l. There is a clearly marked footpath. From there, we head to the port for lunch at a local restaurant. Then we return to Santa Cruz.

At 7 a.m., a bus will pick us up at our hotels and take us to the dock at Itabaca Canal where we’ll board the boat that will take us to Plazas Islands. After navigating two hours, and just upon landing, we can see one of the largest colonies of sea lions in the archipelago. A few meters beyond the landing dock, a group of land iguanas are always observed. The trail then leads to the other side of the island, which is very small and rectangular. We walk along a cliff, where you can observe land iguanas, some marine iguanas, and birds – such as blue-footed and masked boobies, nesting swallow-tailed gulls, Galapagos’ shear waters and tropic birds – on the cliff or soaring above it. As well, frigate birds and pelicans often fly over the bluff.
Despite its small size, this is home to a large number of species and is famous for its extraordinary flora. This island is very popular with domestic and foreign visitors because of its attractive, beautiful thorn trees, cacti and of course the large colony of Galapagos land iguanas. Depending on the season, the vegetation changes color from intense green in the rainy season to orange and purple in the dry season!

After breakfast, we will take a bus or taxi back to the airport. On the way, we will make a last stop to visit the Gemelos Craters, twin geological depressions in the middle of a forest of scalesia (native vegetation) on the highest part of the island. end of the Island hopping in Galapagos.