Itinerary

Day 1      Quito or Guayaquil

Arrive in either Quito or Guayaquil, Ecuador, where you will be met and transferred to your local hotel.* Quito is located in a huge valley of the Andes Mountains at an altitude of 9,455 feet; it�s a great place to extend your stay to explore the city or the surrounding volcanic mountain range. Guayaquil is Ecuador�s largest city and, with its low elevation and more coastal location, is an ideal point from which to fly to the Galapagos. Overnight at the Swissotel or Patio Andaluz in Quito or the Hotel Oro Verde in Guayaquil, for two nights. (*Hotel/city tour package is not included in cruise rate.)
    

Lodging: As noted above (or similar)    

Day 2      Quito or Guayaquil

Quito city tour: Stroll down cobblestone streets and through flowering plazas. Visit the old colonial center of Independence Square, the elegant cathedrals of San Francisco and La Compa��a, and also San Agust�n, Quito�s oldest monastery. Drive through the residential section and past the Legislative Palace (Congress). Visit Panecillo Hill south of the old town, which affords great views of the city, snow-capped mountains, and surrounding volcanos. The rest of the afternoon is at your leisure to explore or relax.

Guayaquil city tour: Our first stop is Malecon 2000, a two-mile-long waterfront promenade along the Guayas River. The waterfront boardwalk features a wide variety of restaurants, cafes, shops, and museums with art exhibitions, as well as free weekend jazz and classical music concerts. Drive through the colorful streets of this, one of Ecuador�s most important port cities. Visit the Public Market, the waterfront, the docks, and Simon Bolivar Park, which is famous for its tree iguanas. Also, admire the watchtower, La Rotonda, Old Santa Ana Fort, and Las Penas, a charming colonial section of town occupied by artists. The rest of the afternoon is at your leisure to explore or relax.
    
Meals: Breakfast
Lodging: See Day 1 itinerary    

Day 3      San Cristobal

The flight from Quito (via Guayaquil) to the Galapagos is approximately 2-1/2 hours long. Upon arrival at San Cristobal airport, travelers pass through an airport inspection point to ensure that no foreign plants or animals are introduced to the islands and to pay the park entrance fee, which will be pre-paid for you. Guides will meet you, collect your luggage, and escort you on the short bus ride to the harbor. Motorized rafts called pangas will transport you to the yacht, and the crew will welcome you onboard. After a briefing and a light lunch, you'll set off for your first landing.

Cerro Brujo, or "Wizard Hill", is located on the western side of San Cristobal and has a spectacular, secluded white-sand beach that is the home to Sally Lightfoot crabs, marine iguanas, and sea lions. It is also a nesting place for blue-footed boobies and a good place for snorkeling or strolling the beach.

Sail past Kicker Rock (Leon Dormido), a magnificent rock in the middle of the sea. Rising 500 feet straight from the ocean, this giant uplifted rock has the shape of a sleeping lion. It has a split with towering vertical walls on either side, forming a narrow channel through which small vessels can navigate.
    
Meals: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner
Lodging: M/V Evolution (or similar)    

Day 4      Punta Suarez and Gardner Bay, Espanola

Hood (Espanola) is the southernmost island of the archipelago and, because it is so isolated, it has a high proportion of endemic fauna. Punta Suarez is one of the most popular and attractive visits in the Galapagos. The quantity and variety of wildlife at this site is remarkable. When landing, young sea lions surf the breaking waves, while a few steps inland, groups of the Espa�ola variety of iguanas bask in the sun. Further inland, masked and blue-footed boobies nest almost right on the trail, Galapagos doves peck around unaware of visitors, and finches go about their business in the bushes. The trail continues toward the cliffs and the blowhole, a fissure in the lava where water spurts high in the air like a geyser.

The cracks in the rock are home to the attractive swallow-tailed gulls and red-billed tropic birds. Further up the cliff, in an area of low-lying trees, is the only place where the waved albatross nests, and in fact, the 10,000 to 12,000 pairs of albatrosses on Hood are the only known individuals of this species in the world. They perform one of the most spectacular rituals of the animal world. Watching these large birds (more than three feet high) take off is another unforgettable moment. The albatrosses clumsily wobble to the edge of the cliff and launch themselves against the wind to be transformed into graceful flying creatures. Gardner Bay offers a great possibility for the visitor to enjoy some beach time in the Galapagos. Here, the seemingly-fearless mockingbirds sit on top of visitors� hats, peck at their feet, and investigate their belongings.
    
Meals: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner
Lodging: M/V Evolution (or similar)    

Day 5      Puerto Ayora & Darwin Station-Santa Cruz

Santa Cruz is the second-largest island in the Galapagos. The small town of Puerto Ayora is the economic center of the archipelago, with the largest population of the four inhabited islands (approx. 10,000). Tourism, fishing, boat building, and commerce are the major productive activities. Santa Cruz is also the only island where six different zones of vegetation can be seen: Coastal, Arid, Transition, Scalesia, Miconia, and Pampa zones.

The Charles Darwin Research Station and the Galapagos National Park offices are based here. Scientists, park rangers, and park managers are involved in major ongoing efforts to preserve and protect the Galapagos Islands, a UNESCO World Heritage site. The Station is also a tortoise breeding and rearing center, where tortoises of different subspecies are prepared for reintroduction to their natural habitats.

The lush greenery of the Santa Cruz Highlands is in stark contrast to the arid scenery of the smaller, lower islands. A point of interest is the famed lava tunnels, a fun and geologically informative visit. The trip to the highlands ends with a visit to the Twin Craters.
    
Meals: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner
Lodging: M/V Evolution (or similar)    

Day 6      Puerto Egas, Santiago/Bartolome Island

On the northwestern side of Santiago Island is South James Bay (Puerto Egas). The landing is on a black beach with eroded rock formations in the background. The trail crosses the dry interior, where the remains of a salt-mining enterprise can still be seen, and then continues along the coast. Intertidal pools are home to a variety of invertebrate organisms. Land iguanas are wandering around, feeding on exposed algae, while oystercatchers try to capture sally lightfoot crabs. The trail then leads to the fur seal grottos, one of the only places in the islands where fur seals can be seen.

Puerto Egas is a good spot for taking pictures. The light for photography is perfect either at dawn or sunset, when the lava and the black sand seem to catch fire and the animals acquire a surreal quality.

Bartolome is famous for its Pinnacle Rock, which is the most representative landmark of the Galapagos. Precariously walking on the rocks at the base of the Pinnacle Rock are Galapagos penguins, the smallest species of penguin and the only one found north of the Equator. At the beach on the southern side, across the isthmus of the island, sea turtles are nesting, wading in the shallow water near the shore, or just resting in the sand, exhausted after swimming a long way to these beaches to lay their eggs. White-tipped reef sharks patrol close to shore. At the other landing, it is possible to climb to the highest point of the island. The site is like a museum of �volcanology,� an eruption site left untouched after the explosion. If it weren�t for the small lava lizards scurrying around and the pioneer mollugo plants, visitor may well feel that they're walking on the surface of the moon.
    
Meals: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner
Lodging: M/V Evolution (or similar)    

Day 7      Prince Philip's Steps, Darwin Bay-Tower

Tower Island is formed by the remaining edges of a large crater this is now mostly submerged. Known as �bird island,� it certainly lives up to its name. At Prince Philip�s Steps, visitors climb to a plateau that is part of the stretch of land that surrounds Darwin Bay on its eastern side. Everywhere one looks, there are masked boobies on the ground and red-footed boobies in the trees. Beyond a broad lava field that extends toward the ocean, thousands of storm petrels flutter like swarms of locusts while short-eared owls hunt down the more inexperienced ones. Snorkeling can be done at the beach or alongside the cliffs. The water inside the bay is very rich in nutrients, so one never knows what may be encountered. Tower is one of the most fantastic islands because of its animals, its landscape, its remoteness, and its unspoiled nature.

Darwin Bay Beach is filled with frigate birds and their bustling activity. Along the trail are pairs of swallow-tailed gulls, the only nocturnal gulls in the world, and red-footed boobies, with their loud, contrasting red feet and blue bills. Lava gulls, pintail ducks, yellow-crowned and lava herons, and other birds feed near the shores of a tidal lagoon just beyond the rocky edge that faces the bay. A panga ride along the walls of the crater reveals the variety of animals that find shelter in the ledges and crevices of the lava. Above, the elegant red-billed tropic birds fly in and out of their nests.
    
Meals: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner
Lodging: M/V Evolution (or similar)    

Day 8      Punta Espinosa, Fernandina/Tagus Cove

Fernandina is the youngest and westernmost island in the Galapagos. Punta Espinosa is a narrow stretch of land where some of the most unique Galapagos species can be seen. While the panga driver skillfully eludes the reef to reach the landing site near a small mangrove forest, penguins hurl themselves off the rocks into the water. Sally lightfoot crabs disperse on the lava near the shore, and herons and sandpipers explore the mangrove roots. Marine iguanas congregate in larger groups there than on any other island. They are everywhere: basking in the sand, swimming near the shore, grazing on the exposed seaweed in the lava, and blocking the way at the landing dock. This is one of the few places where you'll have the opportunity to watch iguanas feed underwater.

Following the trail inland, two different types of lava flows can be seen and compared, an aa lava flow and a pahoehoe lava flow. At the tip of one of the small peninsulas, you will find flightless cormorants. These birds are flightless because on the islands they had no predators and it was easier to find food in the ocean than on land. They progressively evolved for swimming rather than for flight. To see these fantastic birds, with their long, serpent-like necks arched forward, their wet, fur-like plumage, and their bright turquoise eyes, is to witness evolution.

Isabela is the largest island in the archipelago with a total area of about 1,800 square miles. (Santa Cruz, the second largest, is only about 380 square miles.) Composed of six shield volcanoes that have merged into a single land mass, Isabela also features the highest point in all of the islands, Wolf Volcano. Isabela looks a bit like a sea horse facing toward the west. On the way to Tagus Cove, the boat will sail through Bolivar Channel. These are very productive waters; whales and dolphins are often seen here. Tagus Cove was historically used as an anchoring site by pirates and whalers. The nature trail is an ascent through the typical dry vegetation zone and offers spectacular views of Darwin Lake, a saltwater crater lake and a long narrow inlet that appears to connect with it. At the top of the trail, you'll observe different vegetation zones, catch a glimpse of Darwin and Wolf Volcanoes, and look for Galapagos penguins, flightless cormorants, and pelicans.
    
Meals: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner
Lodging: M/V Evolution (or similar)    

Day 9      North Seymour Island/Black Turtle Cove

North Seymour is an uplifted (as opposed to volcanic) island and so is generally flat and strewn with boulders. There are good nesting sites here for a large population of magnificent frigate birds. Blue-footed boobies perform their courtship dance in the more open areas, and swallow-tailed gulls perch on the cliff edges. Despite the tremendous surf that can pound the outer shore, sea lions still manage to haul out onto the beach and can be found together with marine iguanas. Returning to Santa Cruz Island at Black Turtle Cove, the panga will take you into a tidal lagoon to see three kinds of mangrove plants - red, white, and black. White-tipped sharks, spotted rays, mustard rays, and Pacific marine turtles frequent the waters here.
    
Meals: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner
Lodging: M/V Evolution (or similar)    

Day 10      San Cristobal/Quito or Guayaquil

San Cristobal is the easternmost island in the Galapagos. On the southwestern side of San Cristobal is the town of Puerto Baquerizo Moreno, the capital of the province of Galapagos. In Puerto Baquerizo Moreno, visit the Interpretation Center, newly opened by the Galapagos National Park, which is an extraordinary contribution to the education of the island community and visitors. Return to San Cristobal�s airport for your flight back to Quito or Guayaquil, where you will be met and transferred to your hotel with the rest of your day at leisure.
    

Meals: Breakfast, Lunch
Lodging: See Day 1 itinerary    

Day 11      Quito or Guayaquil/Onward

You will be transferred to the airport for your onward flight.
    
Meals: Breakfast

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