8-Day Southern & Western: Pinnacle Rock's Penguins

San Cristobal's airport sits at the edge of Puerto Baquerizo Moreno, a five-minute drive from the town center, so this is usually your first taste of the islands rather than a standalone excursion. Sea lions and marine iguanas are known to rest right next to the runway here, an unscripted welcome few airports can match. From the terminal, a short transfer takes you down to the pier for a panga ride out to your ship.

Named for a park ranger who dedicated 39 years of service to the islands, this San Cristobal facility focuses on conserving the island's native Chelonoidis chathamensis giant tortoise. Established in 2002, it lets you see tortoises at every stage of growth in a carefully designed, semi-natural habitat, part of an ongoing breeding and reintroduction program.

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.

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.

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.

Up in the cool, misty highlands of Santa Cruz, a short walk brings you among wild giant tortoises moving through the undergrowth on their own terms. No fences, no enclosures, just several-hundred-pound reptiles going about their day. This is one of the best places anywhere in the islands for that encounter, and the surrounding vegetation is good habitat for several of Darwin's finches, heard as often as seen.

A geology stop first and foremost. A wet landing on a white coral-sand beach leads out onto a pahoehoe lava field that flowed less than a hundred years ago, its surface still holding the ropy, swirled texture it cooled into, a favorite for photographers. Tiny pioneer plants are just beginning to colonize the cracks in the rock. Bring your camera for the landscape rather than your binoculars here.

A wooden staircase of 372 steps climbs Bartolome's extinct volcano from a lava-and-concrete dock or sandy beach, depending on conditions. Along the way, red, orange, black, and even green volcanic layers mark the slopes, home to pioneer plants like the island-endemic Tiquilia nesiotica, lava cactus, and scattered Scalesia. With some luck, a lava lizard crosses the trail. At the top, the view over the twin bays and the iconic Pinnacle Rock is the reward for the climb. Back at sea level, a snorkel around the coral reef and submerged lava rocks is a good bet for Galapagos penguins and white-tipped reef sharks, with sea turtles and manta rays turning up now and then too.

Darwin Bay sits inside the flooded caldera of Genovesa, and a wet landing on its white coral-sand beach puts you right in the middle of a working seabird colony. Great frigatebirds display along the shore, males inflating scarlet throat pouches to catch a female's eye, and red-footed boobies nest low in the surrounding trees and shrubs, unusual for a booby. Nazca boobies are just as much a fixture here, while blue-footed boobies are a rarer, luckier sighting. Swallow-tailed gulls and red-billed tropicbirds work the cliffs nearby. If you're a confident swimmer, the bay's calm water is a good place to snorkel or kayak afterward, with a chance of white-tipped reef sharks and sea turtles along the rocky shore.

A stone stairway carved into the cliff climbs to a wide plateau holding one of Genovesa's largest seabird colonies. The trail passes through a small Scalesia forest, home to the short-eared owl, one of the few predators on the island, before reaching cliffside colonies where Nazca and red-footed boobies nest side by side, frigatebirds wheel overhead, and thousands of storm petrels dart in and out of cracks in the lava. A small colony of fur seals sometimes gathers near the landing. Red-footed boobies nest in only a handful of places across the archipelago, and this is one of them.

Puerto Egas stands out for its black volcanic sand and a shoreline where land and sea meet in close quarters. Galapagos hawks are often seen along the walk, and at the far end waits a colony of Galapagos fur seals tucked into shaded rock grottoes, one of the more reliable places in the islands to see this endangered species.

A quiet landing on Santiago's western coast, best known as a nesting ground for Pacific green sea turtles, who come ashore to lay their eggs between December and June.

Reachable only by sea, Black Turtle Cove is a mangrove-lined lagoon on Santa Cruz's north shore, protected as a turtle sanctuary. A slow, quiet dinghy ride carries you between four species of mangrove while sea turtles surface for air around the boat, one of the most reliable sightings in the islands. Look down and you'll often see golden and eagle rays moving beneath the hull, and white-tipped reef sharks resting in the shallows.

The return transfer is straightforward: a panga ride from your ship to the pier, then a short bus ride to Baltra's airport, the world's first fully ecological terminal, run on solar and wind power. Land iguanas, reintroduced here after being wiped out decades ago, are sometimes seen right around the grounds on the way to your flight.