Day 1: Arrival at Baltra Airport - Highlands (Santa Cruz)
Arrival at Baltra Airport and transfer in. You must pay your Galapagos National Park entrance fee (unless it was pre-paid) and your luggage will be inspected. An ONIRIC CRUISES guide will meet you, help you collect your luggage, and escort you on a short bus ride to the harbour. Here you will climb aboard the yacht Solaris. After greeting the crew and the captain, your cabins will be assigned to you and then you will enjoy your first lunch aboard.
Santa Cruz offers excellent opportunities for viewing wild Galapagos giant tortoises, roaming through pastures in the agricultural zone and in the transition zone of adjacent El Chato Tortoise Reserve.
Day 2: Mosquera - South Plaza
Galapagos sea lions are true beach lovers and Mosquera offers beautiful white coral sand beaches, which contrast with the blue water and thus attract numerous sea lions.
During a beach walk, you can observe numerous species of waders and sanderlings. Between the rocks, the red clip crabs wait to play hide and seek while you try to get the perfect photo. If you are lucky, you may even encounter yellow-crowned night-herons or even a red-footed booby.
Popular South Plaza is not to be missed! This bizarre ‘Jurassic islet’ is the best place to see the emblematic ‘Galapagos dragons’, which crawl across it.
Day 3: Cormorant Point, Champion Islet - Baroness Lookout, Post Office Bay
This morning you will have a wet landing on this peninsula that is covered with aromatic palo santo forest. The sand at the beach is green, because it contains a high percentage of glassy olivine crystals that have been blown out by the surrounding tuff cones. Crossing to the other side of the peninsula, there is a ‘flour sand’ beach that originated from coral pulverized by Parrotfish.
From the shore you could spot schools of stingrays who love burying themselves in the sandy bottom. During the first months of the year, Pacific green turtles come ashore to bury their eggs. Return on board.
While you were having lunch we navigated to Post Office Bay. This mailing station has been intermittently in use since the eighteenth century, when the Galapagos was a resupplying port for Pacific pirates.
You can join their tradition and send greeting cards to your beloved ones worldwide using the historical barrel (it works). Nearby, the beach is normally visited by sea lions, pacific green turtles, golden rays and even penguins.
Next, you may climb the miniature basaltic cone of Baroness Lookout and take in the paradisiacal coastal views. This viewpoint was the favourite spot of one of Floreana’s first modern-era colonists, the eccentric self-proclaimed Baroness and ‘Empress of Galapagos’ Eloisa von Wagner Bosquet, who even built her house a few metres behind. She and one of her lovers were the first in a series of mysterious disappearances and deaths occurring in this island during the 1930s.
Day 4: Suarez Point (Española) - Gardner Bay (Española)
This island is one of the greatest in the world for birdwatchers. Different kinds of finches, frigates, blue-footed boobies and Nazca boobies can be found, as well as the endemic Española mockingbird, Albatross, and Galapagos hawk. Watch your step, because each Albatross' couple lay an egg on the floor and make it roll over to improve hatching success. The juveniles attend the cliffs of the island to learn to fly by jumping into the abysm. And the chicks
are organized in nurseries where they will safely remain while the adults are away at sea.
Another highlight during this visit is “El Soplador”, a 25 m water geiser produced by ocean waves crashing with great pressure with cracks in the island’s cliff, spouting up through a lava tunnel. This site offers a fantastic background for a meditative experience or a memorable photo.
We will keep exploring Española island, the oldest in the archipelago, estimated at over 4 million years old, located in the extreme southeast of the archipelago.
On the north-eastern coast of this island, Gardner Bay offers a wonderful place to refresh in the turquoise sea and to snorkel side by side with eagle rays, golden rays, barracudas, batfish, turtles, sea lions, and white tipped sharks.
Day 5: Interpretation Centre and Frigatebird Hill (San Cristobal)
Today, for your last excursion, you will disembark to San Cristobal island. There you will visit an Interpretation Center, where photos, historic documents and maquettes will help you get a glimpse of the seriousness and complexity of preserving the unique ecosystems of Galapagos.
After this visit, you will disembark and get transferred to San Cristobal airport. There you will catch your flight.
