Bartolome Island
Every island in Galápagos has its own special wildlife, but Bartolome Island has its own unique magic.
Walking on this island is like walking into the past; volcanoes that were erupting thousands of years ago and lava rivers that were moving down to the ocean are now petrified in solid lava volcanoes and lava tunnels. This morning we had the great opportunity to see this island and get to the top of its volcano where we could observe a beautiful landscape.
During the afternoon we visited one of the islands that Darwin apparently like the most, because he spent 9 days of the almost five weeks in the Galápagos. The walk was excellent along the sea shore of this island where we explored the intertidal zone and our experience was like a recap of this week, because we saw some marine iguanas, sea lions, and sally light foot crabs. The main attraction of this walk however came at the end when we encountered some Galápagos fur sea lions resting inside a nice formation of lava tunnels called Darwin’s grottos.
These grottos was formed of a lava tunnel that collapsed in the water and formed a natural swimming pool where the fur seals like to swim. In one of the tunnels there is a big hole where the water appears and disappears depending of the size of the waves outside; at the time that the waves go out, it form a vacuum that sucks the water very strong making a very strange sound. We call this unique formation Darwin’s toilet and it works every day depending of the wave’s action. We spent good time watching this show where sometimes the sea lions appear inside of the hole. We came back on board just before the sun disappeared behind some of the volcanoes of Isabela island.
Every island in Galápagos has its own special wildlife, but Bartolome Island has its own unique magic.
Walking on this island is like walking into the past; volcanoes that were erupting thousands of years ago and lava rivers that were moving down to the ocean are now petrified in solid lava volcanoes and lava tunnels. This morning we had the great opportunity to see this island and get to the top of its volcano where we could observe a beautiful landscape.
During the afternoon we visited one of the islands that Darwin apparently like the most, because he spent 9 days of the almost five weeks in the Galápagos. The walk was excellent along the sea shore of this island where we explored the intertidal zone and our experience was like a recap of this week, because we saw some marine iguanas, sea lions, and sally light foot crabs. The main attraction of this walk however came at the end when we encountered some Galápagos fur sea lions resting inside a nice formation of lava tunnels called Darwin’s grottos.
These grottos was formed of a lava tunnel that collapsed in the water and formed a natural swimming pool where the fur seals like to swim. In one of the tunnels there is a big hole where the water appears and disappears depending of the size of the waves outside; at the time that the waves go out, it form a vacuum that sucks the water very strong making a very strange sound. We call this unique formation Darwin’s toilet and it works every day depending of the wave’s action. We spent good time watching this show where sometimes the sea lions appear inside of the hole. We came back on board just before the sun disappeared behind some of the volcanoes of Isabela island.
