5-Day Southern Islands: Espanola's Bold Mockingbird

Most Galapagos itineraries begin here. Baltra's airport is the world's first fully ecological airport, run on solar and wind power and built largely from recycled materials, including old oil pipes repurposed into the terminal structure. Land iguanas, wiped out here by the 1950s and reintroduced through a decades-long breeding program, now number in the hundreds again, some right around the airport grounds. From the terminal, a short bus transfer brings you to the pier for the panga ride out to your ship.

Set on the grounds of the Galapagos National Park Service on Santa Cruz, this station was once home to Lonesome George, the last known tortoise of the Pinta subspecies. A series of interpretive buildings walks you through the conservation science underway across the islands, and the surrounding native vegetation is a good place to look for Darwin's finches going about their business.

From the landing, a trail leads to a wide, shallow lagoon where Galapagos flamingos wade through the shallows, filtering shrimp from the mud that gives them their color. Continuing over a low rise brings you to Flour Beach, a nesting ground for green sea turtles between December and June. Just offshore, the eroded remains of an old volcanic cone form Devil's Crown, one of the best snorkeling spots in the islands. White-tipped reef sharks and spotted eagle rays are a near-certain sight inside the ring, and on a good day you might also spot hammerhead sharks, sea lions, or a colorful mix of reef fish weaving through the rocks.

One of the few places in the islands where human history takes center stage over wildlife. In 1793, a whaling captain installed a wooden barrel here as an informal mailbox, and the tradition has never stopped: you're welcome to leave a postcard without a stamp, and to sort through what's already inside for anything addressed near your own home to hand-deliver in person. After a wet landing on the sandy beach, a short walk brings you to the barrel. It is one of the most memorable traditions anywhere in the islands.

A short landing on one of the most beautiful beaches in the islands brings you into a resident colony of Galapagos sea lions, sprawled across the white sand. Between August and November you may also spot pups nursing nearby. This is one of the only places to see the Espanola mockingbird, found nowhere else on Earth and famously unbothered by visitors. After time on the beach, a relaxed snorkel just offshore is a good way to close out the visit, with spotted eagle rays often gliding beneath the surface.

A dry landing among the rocks puts you right at the start of one of the richest walks in the islands. The trail follows dramatic cliffs where blowholes send spray high into the air with every swell, and along the way marine iguanas bask on the black rock. Between December and March, the males here turn a striking red and green for the breeding season. Punta Suarez is the only place on Earth where waved albatrosses nest, and between April and December you'll find the colony in full swing, their courtship displays peaking in October. Blue-footed and Nazca boobies nest along the same stretch of cliff, red-billed tropicbirds circle overhead, and the endemic Espanola mockingbird, famously bold, often comes right up to visitors. Keep an eye out too for the Galapagos hawk and the Galapagos dove working the scrub beside the trail.

Punta Pitt is the only site in the islands where all three Galapagos booby species nest within view of one another: red-foots in the low trees, Nazca boobies on the open cliff-edge ground, and blue-foots further inland. A steep gully climbs to the breeding grounds, where frigatebirds often circle overhead and swallow-tailed gulls round out the colony.

Also known as Witch Hill, Cerro Brujo greets you with towering cliffs before the dinghy even reaches the beach. Once ashore, you can relax alongside the sea lions, snorkel straight from the sand, or walk to a hidden lagoon where shorebirds work the shallows. Blue-footed boobies, swallow-tailed gulls, and marine iguanas are often somewhere along the shoreline and cliffs too.

A short crossing from Puerto Baquerizo Moreno on San Cristobal, Isla Lobos takes its name from the sea lion colony that calls it home, and doubles as a seasonal nesting ground for blue-footed boobies. Frigatebirds have begun nesting here in recent years too, and fur seals turn up now and then. The walk covers roughly 850 meters of mixed rocky and sandy trail.

The transfer back is the reverse of the arrival: a panga ride from your ship to the pier in Puerto Baquerizo Moreno, then a short drive to the airport, which sits right next to town. Keep an eye out for sea lions and marine iguanas near the runway on the way in, one last sighting before you fly out.