In general, the differences between a June Galapagos cruise and one in December has to do with the natural attractions each gets to experience. By December, temperatures start warming up. June, on the other hand, is becoming colder…  in both cases, you’ll need sunscreen… but while December travelers may witness Green Sea Turtles mate, June travelers are prone to encounter Humpback Whales. If we were to list the top highlight per month of what one might find during a regular Galapagos cruise, it could look like this:

the first albatross arrive in March

January: Brightly-colored breeding marine iguanas on Española

February: Nazca Booby hatchlings

March: First Waved Albatross on Española

April: Land iguana hatchlings

May: Blue-footed Booby dance in North Seymour

June: Full-blown Frigatebird red pouch display on North Seymour

July: Flightless Cormorant courtship

August: Galapagos Hawk courtship

September: Penguins and sea lions

October: Mating season for Fur Seals

November: Sea lion pupping and mating.

December: Giant Tortoise hatchlings

The coldest month? September. Best visibility for snorkleres? April and November. Most agreeable weather? Usually November. The hottest month? March…

During the rainy season, the islands turn green… during the dry season, islands become barren, and some of the vegetation on certain islands turns purple, orange or red…  In conclusion, anytime is good. You will always miss out on something that happens at another point in time, so there is no need trying to get it all in to make your decision. If you have a vacation coming up, book a Galapagos tour.

It is a mystery how life in the Galapagos Islands even exists. Animals survive in the harshest of situations, hundreds of kilometers from the luxuries of continental life, on largely unfertile volcanic rocks, and learn how to live in a most fragile, perfect harmony with what their destiny has dealt them. So what better place to think of the generosity of life… where, even in the most deserted and inhospitable places, our Mother Nature provides what’s needed to live and thrive.

On the other hand, there are few places like the Galapagos Islands to show our nature’s mothers at work. Sea lions, boobies, gulls, penguins, sea turtles… laying eggs, giving birth, feeding, caring for their young and tending to their nests, are all things you may witness and experience during many a Galapagos cruise, and the opportunity to do so will be inspiring every time.

So, for many reasons, thinking both of Mother’s Day and the Galapagos Islands makes sense to me.

Tourism in the Galapagos Islands has always tried to focus on respecting nature and as such conceiving the boundaries between the tourist and the wildlife he comes to visit has inherently been a tricky affair. Galapagos wildlife translates as temptation for any nature-lover, as ecologically sensitive as he may be, in many cases breaking all the boundaries that could feasibly separate the two.

A Red-footed Booby will ask you, the tourist, to give him a branch from the ground to build his nest. A Nazca Booby will sit on the path, conceived precisely to reduce the environmental footprint in the islands, forcing you, the tourist, to tread on human-free Galapagos territory. Baby sea lions will grab on to your flippers while snorkeling, Española mockingbirds will search your backpacks and plead for water, and marine iguanas can be so still and are so well camouphlaged that there is a danger that you the tourist step on him. Other animals will actually come to you.

What is the politically correct thing to do? Do I accept that Galapagos “hospitality”… is that the polite thing to do here? If we are to say that we know better, then no. Our duty would be to shy away from temptation and not give the bird the branch, not go closer than 2 meters from the friendly looking fur seal.

The city is clean, the people friendly, used to tourism groups strolling about town. The standard of living here, thanks to tourism and heavy importation from the mainland, is actually much higher than that of mainland Ecuador. You may get to notice this if you walk into a neighborhood store, which you will have the opportunity to do after a visit to a giant tortoise research center where Lonesome George is said to live.

He’s the highlight of the zoo-like environment set up around him, but you can also see the miniscule baby tortoises and marvel at the fact that they will grow over 500% their weight at birth. Lonesome George, on the other hand, is very large and heavy, a seemingly lazy creature who shares his recreated natural setting with one or two female friends. Since he is the last of his kind, researches are hoping to pass on his unique genetic construction down with his closest relatives.

The research station is a great opportunity to be spend time with giant tortoises. And what differentiates this place to a zoo is the fact that there is nothing separating you from the animals. You can come up to them and take as many pictures as you like (one particular favorite is to kneel next to a giant tortoise for scale).

At the town, you will find small galleries, souvenir shops, hotels, grocery stores… nothing special, unless you think that being 1000 miles off shore in small, volcanic islands a bizarre place to see humans. The Galapagos Islands are one of the last places on Earth colonized by people.

Pinnacle Rock

International Earth Day and the Galapagos Islands have a connection. They represent historic milestones of human appreciation and awareness of the natural world. Galapagos travel was virtually inexistent until the 1950s, when pioneering tourism ventures began showcasing the islands to a few chosen people. Since then, the Galapagos Islands became one of the first joint international endeavors to preserve a specific site from the impact of human activity. It made sense, since most ventures were hard, if not impossible, to manage within the islands, the Galapagos seeming to have no other use than to be a “place to visit”. But this idea of nature tourism and the 1959 birth of the Galapagos National Park coincided, maybe even spearheaded, a new movement: an environmental one.

11 years later, U.S. politician Gaylord Nelson founded Earth Day, and many Americans made an entire movement of it. People (20 million) went to the streets on April 22, 1970, to question the blind faith of progress through industrialization. It was the beginning of a new era, an era which is still developing as we speak, as more and more people join to fight and defend Mother Earth. The Jolie-Pitts are among those people, known for their support of environmental efforts worldwide… so it’s great to have had them visit the Galapagos Islands, even if they missed out on Earth Day there!

Of course, they’re not the first Hollywood stars to have hit the islands in the past. Galapagans still remember Robert De Niro’s visit in the eighties/nineties (his autograph can is proudly kept at a popular San Cristobal bar), and since 2009, an upsurge of celebrity interest in conservation has brought the likes of Richard Gere, Chevy Chase, Glenn Close, Edward Norton and Leonardo di Caprio. Bill Gates is also known to have marauded by on his private cruise. Prince Charles, not a Hollywood star, but a celebrity nonetheless, also visited. No doubt, all were impressed and many have since pledged to defend conservation efforts and fight for what the Galapagos Islands represent at a global scale.

Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are expected to leave by Saturday. Not long enough a stay if you ask me, but who would expect them to stay longer, with their busy schedules. In any case, we hope the famous couple and their children have a great time and enjoy their Galapagos luxury cruise to the fullest. They should be far away enough from the usual paparazzi to feel a little more at ease… as they become paparazzi themselves of  world-renown evolution icons such as marine iguanas, Flightless Cormorants, giant tortoises and Darwin’s Finches.

Galapagos frog? Not exactly...

There may very well be an interpretable answer to this in the Bible, actually explaining why God decided the Galapagos, out of all places, did not deserve frogs. But Darwin thought, perhaps, there was a simpler solution, much less divine, and much more logical, as to why the Galapagos Islands did not record amphibians. His basic conclusion was: they never got there. While the other animals found in the archipelago did… frogs didn’t. They actually couldn’t… they would die in the oceanic salt water.

So putting two and two together, this could feasibly suggest that, at some point, the Galapagos Islands had no living creatures on them, and that the only living creatures Darwin found somehow traveled to the islands by their own means. No divine intervention… just plain transportation on large rafts of vegetation.

Darwin’s absence-of-frogs observation may have been one of the earliest suggestions of a land without animals… past the Seventh Day of Creation, that is.  “This could be big… very big.”

Galapagos Flycatcher

The dry landing site that follows a delectable buffet lunch, which by now you are completely used to, feels like a fresh “new beginning”… A sweet-scented Palo Santo forest, a land iguana community and a placid pond with a new set of animals —“new” even for those of us continuing on our Galapagos cruise adventure— are in store. Stilts and pintail ducks, several species of Darwin’s finches and the ever-so-friendly Galapagos Flycatcher are quickly ticked off our checklists. We get to see them up close and personal. The most exciting sighting is precisely that of the flycatcher, a curious little fellow that could easily compete in a stare-down contest.

The views are beautiful on the water, you’re hiking and chatting away with some of the new Galapagos cruise guests, bragging a little, of course, and telling them  all of the fabulous encounters you’ve had since you stepped onto the boat… the visit has been somewhat tame in comparison to previous adventures, but as you look on in the distance, you notice the giant iguana’s back… no… not a real life animal… a mountain. The largest iguana on the archipelago. Spectacular Dragon Hill.

As Galapagos tourism established itself on the islands, people from around the world were given the spectacular opportunity to discover the amazing wildlife of the Galapagos Islands. The birth of Galapagos cruises also coincided with the very first ecological tourism adventures, thus paving the way for a newfound interest in the environment worldwide. Galapagos tourism also ushered the notion of “the human footprint”… which is a key concept today in terms of environmental awareness. And now, since global warming became such a household term, the international community has turned to the Galapagos Islands once again, as one undeniable location to measure its effects.

Scientists have found that the fragility of the Galapagos Islands could be an excellent indicator of global warming and how animal populations are affected by it. Some Galapagos giant tortoise eggs need very specific temperatures, for example, in order to hatch. Low populations, very limited and specific survival resources and requirements, and other reasons make flora and fauna somewhat “unequipped” to handle adversities, especially something as important as general changes in temperature. What will these animals do to confront the problem. Will they evolve, will they flee, will they just die off?

As mankind continues to discuss the impact of global warming, the Galapagos Islands could very well become a reference to understanding how species react to climate change.

A Galapagos Hawk hunting, a marine iguana swimming past, penguins, boobies, and Flightless Cormorants, sea turtles and gigantic tortoises, black sand, red sand, volcanic lava, newborn islands, lava cacti, sea lions, pirate coves, and of course, living at sea for a couple of days in the magnificent Pacific Ocean, the amazing food, the generous staff of your beautiful Galapagos cruise ship, the memory card full of pictures…

To your dismay, however, it has been organized that you get your stuff ready and prepare to leave this particular Galapagos holiday behind. A panga takes you back to Baltra, where you first began this amazing journey that by no means feels like only 4 days…  You are then driven to the airport, and while you patiently wait to board, you walk by the many kiosks and buy some final Galapagos travel souvenirs, fluffy boobies, a frigate t-shirt, a tortoise mug… and that’s how it all ends. But wait… our virtual Galapagos cruise tour is not over yet, for there are still passengers on the boat waiting for the second half of their adventure to begin, right about… now!