San Cristóbal
After a little sleep we had breakfast and headed off to the airport. At the airport they have a special desk for tourists headed to the Galapagos. “Government Advice for the Special Galápagos Regime.” You are required to purchase a tourist transit card for $20 in order to go to the islands. Then we took our bags over to a special customs check. This check is to ensure there are no seeds or animals in your luggage that could be accidentally introduced to the islands. Our flight to the islands was a 45 minute flight to the coastal city of Guayaquil for a 45 minute layover and then another 1.5 hours to San Cristobal. During the second flight announcements were made that all the bags were to be sprayed down with a light insecticide to ensure no bugs were on our bags. Once landed we paid the $100 park entrance fee and one final bag check with a sniffer dog. We flagged down a taxi to take us to our hotel. All taxis on the island are part of an island-wide co-op. Cabs are cheap. Just a few dollars from the airport to our hotel. Our hotel was a mom and pop hotel called Islas Galapagos. Dropped our bags, grabbed my gear and got back in another cab to Playa Loberia on the southern coast of the Island.
Yellow warbler
Medium ground finch (one of Darwin’s Finches)
The trail is approximately 1.5 miles long and 3 miles round trip. The trail takes you from a parking area along a rocky path out to the actual beach. Right from the start the finches are all around us. The short path through the trees reveals the volcanic rocky coast of the island. Among the dark black rocks were a few brown patches. Which I quickly realized were sea lions! Known locally as lobo marino which directly translates to sea wolf. The rules for safe wildlife distances vary across the world. In North America 150-300ft distance from wildlife. In Africa you need to stay on marked roads and don't exit the vehicle. In Galapagos the distance is 6ft. 6ft is an incredible range. Maybe my 200-500mm lens was going to be too much for this place.
In just the first 15 minutes of exploring the island's wildlife I already checked off sea lions, marine iguanas, sally lightfoot crabs, and dozens of finches and other small songbirds. This is going to be an epic week. We reached Playa Loberia where the rangers reminded us of maintaining safe distances and a group of people were snorkeling in the waves among the rocks.
We continued along the trail and it became more of a rock scramble as it went up the Acantilado La Loberia (cliffs). Iguanas and crabs were everywhere and the finches seemed to follow us. The sea birds began to appear flying along the coast, frigate birds, swallow-tailed gulls, blue-footed boobies. The trail steepened to stairs and finished out at the top at a place called Piedras Negras (Black Rocks). The views of the aqua/teal ocean crashing white foam on the black rocks makes for a stunning scene. As a rough breeze blasts its way up the cliff the boobies and gulls float along looking for a quick meal and then take the currents back up to the rocks for a rest. We made our way back down the trail and spotted a huge centipede that slithered into the rocks before I could grab a picture.
Swallow-tailed gull
Overall it took 2 hours to hike the trail. We grabbed a cab and the driver recommended a local place to eat. Fresh chicken and vegetables made for a much needed calorie boost. We walked around the harbor and had a beer while we listened to the bellowing sea lions. We called it a night with a plan for a 530am taxi ride out to the eastern coast.
