August 17, 2008 Bartolome!

This was on the way to the island, even the journey was gorgous!

Sarah and Max, also Tomás de Berlanga volunteers, from England, along with Emma from Brussels (originally England) who is volunteering at another school. This is our "yacht" which actually had hot showers! Woohoo!

Wow, what a spectacular place this is.

This small island located just off Sullivan Bay east of Santiago. Bartolome, a desolate island with few plants is the most visited and most photographed island in the Galapagos. The island consists of an extinct volcano and a variety of red, orange, green, and glistening black volcanic formations.

Read more about it: http://www.galapagosonline.com/Islands/islands/Bartolome/Bartolome.html

Notice the submerged crater here, with Pinnacle Rock in the background, magnificant!

And how about this cactus (with the man-made boardwalk in the background)?

I must say, as good as my photos came out, it still doesn't do the place justice. I was still amazed at how blue the water came out in photos, but it's nothing compared to seeing it in person!

The vegetation is limited to plants that can survive on barren land. You'll see here 3 different plants, probably not much more than that on the whole island. Although, there are mangroves, which we weren't near.

Here is another crater of an inactive volcano.

As we traveled up higher, the view became more spectacular!

You must always get a pelican in action, wherever you may be.

And his is the first marine iguana I actually saw in the water!! He also posed for me!

This is the beach from which we snorkeled, and this is the place that I got to see my first white tipped reef shark, and penguins (which I also got to swim with!). I also had a sea turtle swim under me, in addition to thousands of schools of fish!

These are my first penguins, and how super cute are they? THey're only about 18" tall or so.

As it's tradition to get pictures of the pelicans, so is getting pictures of the sea lions (lobos)

The blue footed booby, and the masked booby, they were actually staring each other down.

I found the name, this is an Inca Finch, spotted on Daphne Mayor, and very rare as most years they cannot be seen at all!

Anyway, this post was a test, for some reason I can't seem to get the layout right with the pictures and words, but at least you can see all of it. Enjoy!

Teresa