Second city of Galapagos

We had arranged our trip to Galapagos in such a way we took the cruise from Santa Cruz to San Cristobal Island – and fortunately it is possible to fly home from San Cristobal – this way we could avoid some annoying back tracking and a 3 hour boat ride to get back to the bigger city. The capital on San Cristobal is Puerto Baquerizo Moreno – and with 6,000 inhabitants it is the second biggest metropolis on Galapagos.

The city has pretty much what you need as a tourist wanting to explore the islands – there are able opportunities to book day trips around the island of San Cristobal. The island is a bit away from the rest of the islands in Galapagos so it isn’t an ideal base for exploring other islands – though I did spend the first afternoon in town booking a trip to the island of Espanola which is a few hours away on speedboat. They had just open up for trips to this island which is one of the most remote and interesting islands of the area – usually it is only accessible on a live aboard cruise but now I get to go as well.

After having secured the booking it is time to see if they have sea lions around here. Ok I know they have sea lions here there were a lot of them blocking the stair when we left the cruise ship to go ashore on the island.

The sea lions hang around in the harbor area and on every beach in the area around the town. So it is easy to go and spot sea lions.

In addition to the sea lions there is also the other usual wildlife around town. There are many marine iguanas and several pelicans.

Down at the beaches we also see the usual gatherings of bright red crabs which hang around on the rocks down at the beach so we can enjoy the pretty crabs on the rocks.

The fishermen around here also manage to catch fish. There are fish down at the harbor which the birds try to eat a bite of the tail – but the fish shops around here is less interesting than our favorite fish shop in Puerto Ayora.

The town actually turned out to be a great base for staying a few days and exploring the area around the town – and just enjoying the sea lions around town.