Arrive in either Quito or Guayaquil, Ecuador, where you will be met and transferred to your local hotel.* Quito is located in a huge valley of the Andes Mountains at an altitude of 9,455 feet; it’s a great place to extend your stay to explore the city or the surrounding volcanic mountain range. Guayaquil is Ecuador’s largest city and, with its low elevation and more coastal location, is an ideal point from which to fly to the Galapagos. Overnight at the Swissotel or Patio Andaluz in Quito or the Hotel Oro Verde in Guayaquil, for two nights. (*Hotel/city tour package is not included in cruise rate.)

Quito city tour: Stroll down cobblestone streets and through flowering plazas. Visit the old colonial center of Independence Square, the elegant cathedrals of San Francisco and La Compañía, and also San Agustín, Quito’s oldest monastery. Drive through the residential section and past the Legislative Palace (Congress). Visit Panecillo Hill south of the old town, which affords great views of the city, snow-capped mountains, and surrounding volcanos. The rest of the afternoon is at your leisure to explore or relax.

Guayaquil city tour: Our first stop is Malecon 2000, a two-mile-long waterfront promenade along the Guayas River. The waterfront boardwalk features a wide variety of restaurants, cafes, shops, and museums with art exhibitions, as well as free weekend jazz and classical music concerts. Drive through the colorful streets of this, one of Ecuador’s most important port cities. Visit the Public Market, the waterfront, the docks, and Simon Bolivar Park, which is famous for its tree iguanas. Also, admire the watchtower, La Rotonda, Old Santa Ana Fort, and Las Penas, a charming colonial section of town occupied by artists. The rest of the afternoon is at your leisure to explore or relax.

The flight from Quito (via Guayaquil) to the Galapagos is approximately 2-1/2 hours long (about 2 hours from Guayaquil). Upon arrival at San Cristobal airport, travelers pass through an airport inspection point to ensure that no foreign plants or animals are introduced to the islands and to pay the park entrance fee, which will be pre-paid for you. Guides will meet you, collect your luggage, and escort you on the short bus ride to the harbor. Motorized rafts called Zodiacs (or pangas) will transport you to the yacht, and the crew will welcome you onboard.

After a briefing and a light lunch, you’ll set off for the north. You should have views of Kicker Rock, a spectacular formation that rises 152 meters (500 feet) out of the Pacific. It takes the form of a sleeping lion, but from another angle you can see that the rock is split, forming a colossal tablet and, piercing the sea, a great chisel ready for etching.

You will set out along the coast of San Cristobal heading northeast toward your first landing at Cerro Brujo. This inviting powdery beach beside a turquoise waters is a great introduction to the islands offering your first opportunity to go snorkeling with sea turtles, rays and the archipelago’s playful ‘wolves of the sea’ i.e. sea lions. 

After walking the trail in search of baby sea lion and boobies beneath the salt bushes you’ll have a real treat as you change into your snorkeling gear for some swimming with sea lions! The sea lions like to dart past, and then swim up to you to blow bubbles at your mask. On occasion they have been known to  leap  over, and  then dive in front of unsuspecting snorkelers. In  short the sea lions are real show offs and this is the first place where you will have the opportunity to go snorkeling with them.

The afternoon comes to a close as you head south back to Puerto Baquerizo Moreno. You’ll enjoy your first Pacific sunset aboard the boat.

South Plaza is the southern partner of two small crescent-shaped islands that lie just a few hundred meters off the east coast of Santa Cruz. The northern island is used for scientific purposes only, while South Plaza is one of the smallest, yet richest islands in the archipelago. Only 130 meters wide (426 feet), it was formed from uplifted seabed, giving it a tilted tabletop quality. Yellow land iguanas wander through bright red carpet weed, waiting from prickly pears to drop from green cactus. Orange sally lightfoot crabs dot the blackened lava above the landing site, all surrounded by turquoise waters. We’ll see swallow tailed gulls nesting along the up-tilted end of the tiny island, while red-billed tropicbirds, frigate-birds and shearwaters fly in dancing displays. You”ll also have the chance to see blue footed boobies along the cliff’s edge.

Located between North Seymour and Baltra is the small island of Mosquera. The  island  consists  of  a  long  narrow  stretch  of  white  sand, rocks and tide pools. Created by geological uplift, the island has a flat look to it rather than the conical shape of the volcanically formed islands. A stroll down the beach offers views of the brown pelicans, boobies and colonies of sea lions that like to laze here. The tiny spit of land has one of the largest  populations of sea lions in Galapagos. Along the rocks and in the tide pools are the now familiar sally lightfoot crabs (red lava crabs). They follow the tide eating the algae and detritus left behind. Ever aware of movement around them, the sally lightfoot is quick to escape from approaching predators, in  stark contrast to the unabashed way the crabs climb over the sedentary marine iguanas.  

A  short distance to the east of Mosquera you will notice a small table-like island and just to the south of this, an island comprised of a single volcanic cone (called a tuff cone). The larger island is known as Daphne Major and the smaller table island is Daphne Minor. You will be navigating close by the larger of the two islands, Daphne Major. Though Daphne is just a short distance from Baltra, with its airport, the Galapagos National Park restricts visits here. Because her shores are teaming with life, especially birds, you will cruise past her shores for a look. The island has been of central focus to scientific researchers and featured in The Beak of the Finch, the Pulitzer Prize winning non-fiction book about the work done by biologists Paul & Rosemary Grant. We will not only see finches, but short-eared owls, masked boobies and Galapagos martins as we pass along her shores.

Sombrero Chino Islet, meaning “Chinese Hat” in Spanish, is a miniature volcanic cone. This site has a beautiful landscape and a spectacular white coral sand beach where visitors can see colonies of sea lions. It is a great place to observe lava formations such as spatter cones (“hornitos”) and small lava tubes. The swimming and snorkeling are also excellent in this visitor site, and penguins are frequently sighted.

Afternoon visit to James Bay, where we land on a black beach with intriguing eroded rock formations. A trail leads to a series of crystal-clear grottos with a natural bridge formed of broken lava tubes. This is the best place in the Galapagos to see fur seals and equally best place to see samurai-like marine iguanas feeding in tidal pools nearby. You will find a colony of sea lions here and Galapagos hawk frequent the area. Snorkeling offers encounters with Green Sea Turtles and tropical fish.

Genovesa looks like it could serve as a film set for a secret submarine base, with its ocean-filled caldera ringed by the outer edges of a sizeable and mostly submerged volcano. The island sits to the northeast, somewhat removed from the Galapagos archipelago. It is also known as “Bird Island,” a name it lives up to in a spectacular way. Landing on the white coral sands of Darwin Bay and walking up the beach, you will be surrounded by the bustling activity of great frigatebirds. Puffball-chicks with their proud papas—who sport their bulging scarlet throat-sacks—crowd the surrounding branches, while both yellow-crowned and lava herons feed by the shore. Farther along, you will discover a stunning series of sheltered pools set into a rocky outcrop, forming another natural film set. A trail beside the pools leads up to a cliff overlooking the caldera, where pairs of swallow-tailed gulls, the only nocturnal gulls in the world, can be seen nesting at the cliff’s edge. Lava gulls and pintail ducks ride the sea breezes nearby.
A brief panga ride brings us to the base of those same cliffs to reveal the full variety of species sheltering in the ledges and crevices created by the weathered basalt. Among them, red–billed tropicbirds enter and leave their nests trailing exotic long tails known as streamers. This is also an intriguing place to go deep-water snorkeling, where the truly fortunate swimmer can spot one of the giant manta rays that frequent the inner bay along the cliff walls.

Across the bay is Prince Philip’s Steps, named for a visit by the British Monarch in 1964. The 25- meter (81-foot) stairway leads to a narrow stretch of land that opens out onto the plateau surrounding Darwin Bay, and extends to form the north side of the island. Red-footed boobies wrap their webbed feet around branches to perch in the bushes, and, in contrast, their Nazca booby cousins dot the surface of the scrublands beyond. Crossing through the sparse vegetation, you will come to a broad lava field that extends toward the sea—this forms the north shore. Storm petrels flutter out over the ocean in large flocks, then return to nest in the cracks and tunnels of the lava field, where their predator, the short-eared owl, is a frequent visitor.

In the morning, you’ll visit North Seymour Island (dry landing), which is teaming with wildlife. Cliffs only a few meters high form the shoreline, home to swallow-tailed gulls. A tiny forest of silver-grey Palo Santo trees stands just above the landing, where a trail (with options ranging from easy to difficult) will take you to see sea lions, marine iguanas, blue-footed boobies, pelicans, magnificent frigate-birds, and land iguanas.

In the afternoon, you’ll visit Santa Fe Island, home to one of the most beautiful and sheltered bays of the archipelago and to some of the best snorkeling, with crystal clear water, and certainly one of the best locations to see sea turtles, swim with sea lions, and glimpse the Galapagos white-tipped shark. After a wet landing you will walk up to a nearby cliff (medium level of difficulty) to see the land iguanas in an area of Opuntia cactus.

Floreana has had a colorful history: pirates, whalers, convicts, and a small band of somewhat peculiar colonists — a Baroness among them — who chose a Robinson Crusoe-like existence here that ended in mystery and death. This morniong, visit Post Office Bay, where in 1793, British whalers set up a barrel as the island‘s Post Office to send letters home on passing ships. The tradition continues to this day, simply by dropping a post card into the barrel without a stamp. Traditionally, visitors search post cards for any addressed to their home towns, which they deliver by hand when they arrive home after their travels.

This afternoon a visit to Punta Cormorant (wet landing, easy walking) which offers two highly contrasting beaches — a green-olivine beach and an iron-red beach. From here, a trail crosses the neck of the isthmus that rises to form a cinder cone to a beach of very fine white sand, formed by the erosion of coral skeletons. Between the two beaches is a salt lagoon frequented by flamingoes, pintails, stilts, and other wading birds. After lunch in the afternoon,You’ll also visit Devil’s Crown (wet landing, easy walking), which is home to myriad of marine species, including a variety of corals, pencil sea urchin, wrasses, angelfish, and amberjacks, making for some of the best snorkeling in the Galapagos.

Santa Cruz is the second-largest island in the Galapagos and something of a hub for the archipelago. Puerto Ayora, located in the southeast of this large, round volcanic island, is the economic center of the Islands. It has the largest population among the four inhabited islands (approx. 18,000), which economically relies mostly on tourism—including refurbishing and resupplying yachts—along with fishing and boat-building.

Puerto Ayora is home to both the Galapagos National Park Service Headquarters and Charles Darwin Research Station, the center of the great restorative efforts taking place in the park, a UNESCO World Heritage site. Here we go ashore to visit the Giant Tortoise Breeding and Rearing Program run by the research station, which began by rescuing 14 tortoises remaining on the island of Espanola in 1970. This program has restored the population of animals there to over 1,000 today. You will see many of these animals, with their sweet alien-like necks and faces, from hatchlings to juveniles to large, distinguished individuals. The local color of this port makes for an attractive stop-off, with restaurants, souvenir shops, and internet cafes.

A highlight of any trip is a visit to the Highlands, where the dry coastal vegetation transitions to lush wet fields and forests overgrown with mosses and lichens. Our destination is the Tortoise Reserve, where we will have chances to track and view these friendly and ancient creatures in their natural settings. This extends to the adjacent pasturelands, where farmers make some profits by allowing visitors into their farms in exchange for payment. The best times to see tortoises here is during the cool or dry season from June through December. Another nearby attraction is the highland’s lava tubes. Some of tubes offer easy access by the means of wooden stairways that descend to the mouth of their arched cave entrances. From there one can make their way into the tubes underground along the cool, dimly lit naturally formed passages with their fascinating rock formations. The tubes make for a fairly easy and interesting hike. You should bring along non-slip footwear and some hikers prefer to use a flashlight.

Black Turtle Cove, located on the northern shore of Santa Cruz, is a living illustration of how mangroves alter the marine environment to create a rich and unique habitat. Four species of mangrove crowd from the shore out into the lagoon, which stretches almost a mile inland. As we drift though the quiet waters in our dinghy, we are likely to see spotted eagle rays and cow nosed or golden rays, which swim in a diamond formation. White-tipped reef sharks can be seen beneath the boat, and Pacific green sea turtles come to the surface for air and to mate. Sea birds, including pelicans, herons, and egrets, all feed in the cove. This cove has been declared a turtle sanctuary.

After this morning visit, head to Baltra‘s airport for your midday flight back to Quito or Guayaquil, where you will be met and transferred to your hotel with the rest of your day at leisure.

Transfer to the airport for your onward flight.