by galapagoscruises — published on March 19th, 2009
Baltra Island and San Cristóbal Island are the only 2 airports in Galapagos you can land on to start Galapagos tours.
When you travel to the Galapagos islands, normally you will fly from any destination of the world to Quito, Ecuador. Then you take an airplane to one of the 2 Galapagos islands mentioned above to finally embark on one of the many Galapagos island cruises.
Like other Islands in Galapagos, Baltra island is very dry. Baltra’s vegetation consists mainly of bushes and cactus.
Baltra island is not within the boundaries of the Galapagos National Park and the many iguanas you will see are not even native to Baltra island: the native Baltra iguana got extinct before the second world war.
So when somebody on those Galapagos island tours stress that Galapagos is The untouched paradise on earth, be reminded on Baltra island: where people land, wildlife is in danger…
Technorati Tags: airports, baltra, baltra island, Galapagos, galapagos tours
by galapagoscruises — published on January 2nd, 2009
After visiting Rabida Galapagos, our Galapagos island holiday took us to Bartolome Island.
This is a very popular Galapagos cruise destination but it is worthwhile a visit.
Especially if you love snorkeling and sea-life like we do, Bartolome Island is paradise.
Penguins are just shooting next to you and the sea lions are so curious, that they come to you instead of you having to look for them once you are in the water.
It’s wonderful how these sea creatures were playing with us and with our flippers.
Make sure to bring a disposable underwater camera when you plan your Galapagos island holiday: it’s well worth your while when you love snorkeling!
At the end of the afternoon, we climbed the Bartolome island volcano, saw a huge Galapagos snake on the way and admired to view on top of the Bartolome island volcano admiring Pinnacle rock and Sullivan Bay.
Pinnacle rock sticking out in the middle-right
We had a lovely dinner on our little Galapagos cruise ship and headed from Bartolome Island for a night’s travel to Genovesa Island. (see our next post)
Technorati Tags: bartolome island, Galapagos, galapagos cruises, galapagos island, galapagos tours, galapagos travel, island holiday
by galapagoscruises — published on December 29th, 2008
After Baltra we visited Rabida Galapagos: our second island during our Galapagos island holiday.
It took our Galapagos island cruise one complete night to sail from Baltra to Galapagos. We want to tell you to make sure you bring your anti seasick pills with you, otherwise you could be in for a very sleepless night.
But once your stomach has settled, your travel to the Galapagos becomes priceless when you wake up just before the shore of Rabida Island.
We had breakfast on our Galapagos cruise ship admiring from far a big colony of sea lions basking on the red-brown lava soil of Rabida.
After breakfast we jumped into our "panga" to set foot on Rabida. Although the sea lions couldn’t be bothered with our presence, our guide warned us not to get to close into the territory of the dominant male. Especially since there were a few newborn sea lions present 
We admired lots of blue-footed boobies fishing of the coast of Rabida Island. The island itself is quite rough with only Palo Santo trees and Opuntia cacti.
The main reason however that trips to the Galapagos stop at Rabida Island is the snorkeling: we saw abundance of colourful fishes including a white-tipped reef shark as big as me, scary…
During lunch we sailed from Rabida Galapagos to Isla Bartolome (see our next post).
Technorati Tags: baltra, galapagos cruises, galapagos island, galapagos tours, galapagos travel, island holiday, rabida galapagos, rabida island, rabida island galapagos
