9-Day Southern & Northern: Gardner Bay's Spotted Eagle Rays

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.

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 tiny, flat islet of white coral sand between North and South Seymour, Mosquera is best known for its resident sea lion colony, sprawled across the beach for much of the day. Shorebirds and lava herons work the shoreline fairly reliably, and sharks and rays are a possibility for anyone snorkeling or diving nearby.

A short landing puts you immediately among sea lions and the endemic Plaza land iguana, smaller and more golden than its relatives elsewhere. Watch closely and you might spot a rare hybrid, the result of an occasional cross between a marine and a land iguana found only here. The trail crosses a carpet of succulent Sesuvium, red for part of the year, studded with Opuntia cactus. Along the cliffs, swallow-tailed gulls nest on the ledges beside red-billed tropicbirds, and frigatebirds circle overhead as the loop returns to the landing.

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, then on to a lava tube you can climb down into by ladder. It is one of the most memorable traditions anywhere in the islands.

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.

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.

The Galapagos National Park's Interpretation Center on San Cristobal, open since 1998, walks you through the islands' volcanic origins, the evolution of their wildlife, and the conservation work protecting them today, organized chronologically across a series of exhibits. It's a good first stop for context that makes everything you see afterward click into place, a walk-through, education-focused visit rather than a wildlife stop.

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.

Formed by geological uplift rather than volcanic activity, Santa Fe is unusually flat for a Galapagos island, and it's the only place on Earth with its own endemic subspecies of land iguana. After landing in clear, turquoise water, a walk through a forest of giant, tree-sized Opuntia cactus leads to iguanas basking beneath them. The Galapagos dove is a reliable sight along the trail, and with some luck you may also spot the Galapagos snake or the Galapagos hawk.

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.

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.

Chinese Hat, or Sombrero Chino, is a small islet of delicate lava and spatter cones just off Santiago's southeastern coast. A narrow channel of turquoise water between the islet and the Santiago shoreline makes for excellent snorkeling, where sharks, sea lions, and rays are regularly reported, and a Galapagos penguin occasionally turns up too.

A panga brings you ashore onto one of the most distinctive beaches in the islands, with sand tinted deep red by its high iron content, with Rabida's rugged cliffs rising behind it. Sea lions are usually stretched out along the shoreline, and it's a good spot to watch for the endemic Galapagos dove working the sand nearby. From the beach, a short trail winds through palo santo forest and cactus scrub, climbing gently to an overlook with sweeping views across the bay, a nice place to pause and take in the color of the landscape before heading back down. If you'd rather stay on the water, snorkeling right off the beach is an easy, relaxed way to spend the visit, with good odds of company from the resident sea lions.

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.

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.