Santa Cruz, Cerro Dragón and Sombrero Chino
This morning we landed on the northern side of Santa Cruz Island to visit one of the most picturesque sites of this island – picturesque in the sense that yesterday we were on the southern side and it was very green and today extremely arid. However, the dry stark palo santo trees gave this site its unique landscape, not to mention the young prickly pear cacti that are covered with spines, making them look as if they have a fur coat on them.
To our surprise we found two flamingos in a small lagoon close to the shore.
As we walked inland, we saw a few land iguanas performing different activities: sun bathing, eating, fighting for territory – in short, we got to appreciate quite a bit of their natural day to day activities in a short period of time. While these dragon-like creatures warmed up their bodies, the Galápagos flycatchers, mocking birds, and finches were busy looking for food, and once again the elusive dark-billed cuckoo made an appearance along the bushes.
Following this unique exploration, we went for a great snorkeling outing along the cliffs of Guy Fawkes. Here the water goes from shallow to extremely deep quickly, and we saw small creole, cardinal fish, sunset wrasses, sea stars and even white tip sharks and large parrot fish.
At midday, National Geographic Endeavour sailed to our next destination, Sombrero Chino or Chinese Hat. The first activity at this site was Zodiac driving lessons for our young explorers, who were very exited and learned very fast. As soon as this activity was over, we went snorkeling in a small channel between Chinese Hat and Santiago’s coast. This snorkeling site was so different from the one in the morning yet it had great wildlife: parrot fish, king angels, black stripped salemas, sergeant majors and many others. For the non-snorkelers, the beach was a great spot to play with the sand and enjoy the sea lions that kept amusing us.
Our last water activity was a Zodiac ride along the coast of Santiago, where we could see a fairly recent lava flow, and we spotted Galápagos penguins basking on the lava with the last sun rays. And with this gorgeous ride we ended another day in paradise.
