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 Baltra 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 to begin your adventure.

Daphne Minor, a tuff cone (giant pile of compressed volcanic ash shaped like a cone), sits off the north coast of Santa Cruz Island, west of Baltra Island and North Seymour Island. While off limits to all but limited scientific parties going ashore, we’ve obtained permission from the National Park to navigate around the island, close by. You will have a front row seat to witness bustling colonies of blue-footed boobies, Nazca boobies, magnificent frigate birds and more. You’ll also have the opportunity to observe short-eared owls and red-billed tropicbirds. This island has (natural) historic importance as a result of the husband-wife biology team of Peter and Rosemary Grant conducting a 20 year field study into the behavior and life cycles of finches as relates to Darwin’s theory of natural selection. Their work is chronicled in the Pulitzer Prize-winning book The Beak of the Finch. As the sun sets on your first day in the Enchanted Archipelago, you’ll toast to the voyage ahead with a welcome cocktail.

In the morning we visit Punta Vicente Roca on Isabela Island. Snorkeling is incredible here as a result of the nutrient-rich waters of the Humboldt Current that bathe the western side of the archipelago. We will have a chance to see colorful fish, sea lions, penguins and sea turtles in the water.

This afternoon visit to Fernandina Island, home to La Cumbre volcano, which erupts frequently (most recently in May 2005). We visit Punta Espinoza, a narrow spit of land, where a number of unique species, such as flightless cormorants, marine iguanas, sea turtles, Galapagos Penguins, and Galapagos hawks can be seen in close proximity.

Located directly west of Isabela’s Volcano Alcedo, Urbina Bay is where we will make an easy, wet landing (a hop into a few inches of water). We walk on a stretch of three miles (5 km) of the marine reef that has been uplifted by as much as 13 feet (4 meters) out of the water. A highlight of this excursion are the giant land iguanas and giant tortoises, as well as the opportunity to go snorkeling amongst marine creatures, or just relaxing on shore.

In the afternoon we visit Tagus Cove on Isabela Island. A wooden stairway rises to the trail entrance and continues around Darwin Lake through a dry vegetation zone, and ends in a promontory formed by spatter cones. The site provides spectacular views of our anchorage in the bay, as well as Darwin and Wolf Volcanoes. The green algae underwater pastures of the cove offer the chance to snorkel with marine iguanas, sea turtles, penguins and sea horses.

In the morning we visit Bartolome Island (easy, wet landing), famous for Pinnacle Rock, where we will see Galapagos Penguins and sea lions. We will also hike a trail to Bartolome’s summit (moderate), where you will be rewarded with spectacular views of Pinnacle Rock and our beach, where the crystal blue waters of the bay cradle the yacht. After lunch, visit to Sullivan Bay, one of the most outstanding volcanic sites in the Galapagos. In the nearly 100 years since the Sullivan Bay Flow, only a few plants like Mollugo and Lava cacti have managed to take root in this harsh environment. Oystercatchers can be seen fishing for crabs and mollusks in the tide pools of Sullivan Bay. After exploring the lava flow, there is swimming and snorkeling with playful sea lions off two small coraline beaches. relaxing on shore.

In the morning, you’ll visit Las Bachas (wet, easy landing), a sandy white-coral beach that is a major egg-laying site for sea turtles, on Santa Cruz Island. The name Bachas refers to the remains of landing craft left here at the end of WWII. Ashore, marine iguanas mingle with flamingos and other wading birds in another of the many super saline lagoons found in the Galapagos.

Return to the ship for lunch, then in the afternoon, visit Rabida Island, commonly known by its English name of Jervis, is unique for the very red color of the beach and cliffs, beneath which one can find gliding sea turtles and perched blue footed boobies. A thick forest of Palo Santo trees sits back from the beach sheltering a yellow saltwater lagoon. Pelicans next in the thickets and brightly colored pink flamingoes graze the lagoon. A sea lion colony likes to laze on the red sands of the beach. We hike up a tiny peninsula for a wonderful view of the beach and lagoon. Sea caves invite exploration further down the coast.

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 Galapagos. 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. 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, somewhat alien 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.

Espanola is the southernmost island of the archipelago and is one of the most popular due to the breathtaking variation and sheer number of creatures that greet visitors. The giant tortoises, though present on this island, reside in an off-limits area, but don’t worry—the famous giant tortoise awaits you on other islands! Some individuals were reintroduced to Espanola the 1990s and since then their numbers have climbed. This effort counts as one of the National Park’s greatest success stories.

The quantity and variety of wildlife at Punta Suarez (dry landing) is remarkable. Sea lions surf the waves beyond the breakwater landing, and tiny pups are known to greet your toes upon arrival. A few steps inland, you will find communal napping piles of the most peculiar population of marine iguanas in the Galapagos which bear distinctive red markings, some with a flash of turquoise running down their spine and legs. The trail (difficult) then takes us beside the western edge of the island where Nazca boobies (formerly known as Masked boobies) nest along the cliff’s edge and then descends to a rocky beach before rising to an open area and a large gathering of nesting blue-footed boobies. Galapagos doves, cactus finch, and mockingbirds forage nearby, unconcerned by human presence.

The trail continues to the high cliff edge of the southern shore; below, a shelf of black lava reaches out into the surf where a blowhole shoots a geyser of ocean water into the air. Within this area along the cliffs is the “Albatross Airport” where waved albatross line up to launch their great winged bodies from the cliffs, soaring out over the dramatic shoreline of crashing waves and driven spray. In the trees set back from the cliff is one of only two places in the world where the waved albatross nests. In fact, the 13,000 pairs that inhabit Espanola Island are the total endemic population of this species of birds, with the exception of a very small population that occasionally nests elsewhere on the continental part of Ecuador. Lucky visitors can watch courtship ‘fencing’ done with great yellow beaks and necks among the large, fluffy, perfectly camouflaged chicks. Mating occurs year-round. On the northeastern shore of Espanola, Gardner Bay (wet landing, easy walking) offers a magnificent long white sandy beach where colonies of sea lions laze in the sun, sea turtles swim offshore, and inquisitive Hood mockingbirds boldly investigate new arrivals. You will be lured into the turquoise water for a swim, but just a little further offshore, the snorkeling by Tortuga Rock and Gardner Island offers peak encounters with playful young sea lions and large schools of surprisingly big tropical fish, including yellow-tailed surgeonfish, king angelfish and bump-head parrot fish. Sleepy white-tipped reef sharks can be seen napping on the bottom and sometimes Hammerhead sharks are visible nearby.

San Cristobal is the easternmost island in the Galapagos. Darwin reported encountering a pair of giant tortoises feeding on cactus during his first landing here in 1835. Today the airport of this easternmost island in the chain is increasingly used as the arrival point for flights into and out of the Galapagos. The administrative capital for the province is Puerto Baquerizo Moreno on the southwestern shore, and in 1998 the Galápagos National Park Interpretation Centre opened for the benefit of islanders and travelers alike, presenting a comprehensive exhibit of the islands’ natural history, human interaction, ecosystems, flora, and fauna. It is also the place where cultural activities take place, including theater, exhibitions, and workshops. From the Interpretation Center, a three-kilometer loop trail arrives at Frigate Bird Hill, where both magnificent frigate-birds and great frigate-birds can be seen in the same colony—ideal for learning to distinguish the two bird species.

Along with your tour of the visitor center museum there will be time to stroll
the quaint tiny port town, with time to shop for last minute souvenirs before
taking the bus to the airport where you will have your last chance to make purchases in the Galapagos.

Return to San Cristobal’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.

You will be transferred to the airport for your onward flight.