Just to fill the winter void and until I return from my next travels, I dug into my archives and found that I had not posted photos from my trip to Galapagos a few years ago.
Most visitors tour the archipelago by boat. As we were not too keen to sleep and eat on a boat, we found a nice safari-like camp on the island of Santa Cruz: the Galapagos Safari Camp. It offered day-tours to the different islands on a private boat while having all the conveniences of a landbased vacation. And it felt like a safari! The camp is located in the highlands of Santa Cruz - when coming up from the coast we had to traverse several climate zones, from beach to dry zone to rain forest which made the stay even more interesting.
Treehanging ferns and mosses in the misty humid vegetation zone
Cacti in the misty zone full of lichen and mosses
three of fourteen closely-related species of Darwin's finches
The iconic land iguanas are surprisingly agile. They can sit perfectly still like statues from an ancient time but when they move, one realizes that they are animals just like any other. With the corners of their mouths permanently upturned, they always seem to smile.
eyeing an especially juicy fruit
Gourmet
South Plaza Island with its characteristic tree opuntias
Red-billed tropicbird
Frigate Bird
in courtship
baby frigate bird mimicking its mother
Young Frigate Bird
following our boat and eyeing me from above
Blue-footed booby
Young ones
on dry deserted Bartholome-Island
volcanic rock
lots of red rock crab on the shores
Galapagos Hawk
Marine Iguanas
They do swim and dive
Brown Galapagos Pelican
diving
Galapagos sea lion
enjoying the sun
.. no rest with a hungry baby...
Red Rock crabs , also "Sally lightfoot crab"
the elusive shy Ghost crab next to its hole
Whimbrel (Numenius phaeopus)
our beautiful day boat
