Galapagos Santa Cruz Island

Just after getting back from Mexico we headed to Galapagos for a week. A parent of a girl in our class, Tamia, has a place there and invited us to come and stay with them. There place was gorgeous (galapagosexclusivetours.com) and only a short boat taxi away from Puerta Ayora on the island of Santa Cruz. Tamia's Dad, Juan Carlos used to be a guide in the Galapagos Islands for 17 years so was an expert and seemed to know everybody! Last time we visited the Galapagos Islands we spend the majority of our time on a cruise and only stayed on the island of Isabela for 3 days so it was great to see Santa Cruz properly.


During the 6 days we were there, we managed to go kayaking, snorkelling and surfing. We managed to see lots of amazing wildlife and saw some breath taking views. Here are just a few of the pictures I took. I was in my element snapping away!



We went for an early morning swim at 'Las Grietas,'which is a series of cravaces. You walk along a natural path of volcanic rock to the beautiful site which has a channel of water between the rocks leading to the ocean. We went snorkelling there at 7 o'clock in the morning. There was not a person in site it was great! The place was only a half hour walk from where we were staying.


We hiked to Tortuga bay with Juan-Carlos and Tamia. We went on to the Mangrove area where we sat for over an hour (again we went really early in the morning so there was noone around apart from the animals). We then had a go at surfing on Tortuga Bay - the waves were great. We were both pretty hopeless but it was great fun. I'd love to have another go sometime!


We travelled 20mins to the East of the Islands with a friend of the family called Treecy. Again we left early to arrive before the other visitors and when it was cooler as the weather was scorching the whole time we were there.



On the last day we went up to the Highlands where you can see giant tortoises roaming around in the wild. The walk was lovely and we saw loads of wildlife.
Some friends from work, Mark, Miranda and Ewan were also on the Island at the same time as us so we met them for dinner and drinks most evenings. They did the cruise around the islands for the first half of their trip them came to Santa Cruz for the second week.