Galapagos Scenery

The Galapagos Islands are all of volcanic origin, and for the most part, the climate is relatively dry even though they are located in the tropics. The exception to this is the highland areas on some islands that support a quite lush vegetative community. A complex of ocean currents around the island drive the weather patterns, with a warm and wetter season from December to May and a cooler, drier pattern from May through November. The weather patterns spawned by "El Nino" events in the Pacific Ocean result in occasional very wet periods, and extreme droughts are also rather frequent. These events combined with the geographic isolation of the Galapagos are the major influences on the island vegetation and wildlife.

Our island visits were all by foot except for some vehicle travel to higher elevations on Santa Cruz Island, so most of the scenery and vegetation we encountered was on the dry end of the spectrum and dominated by volcanic features. This view from a high point on Bartolome' Island is a great example of some different forms of a volcanic landscape. Lava flows were common on many of the near shore areas. At higher elevations, lava tubes were formed when the outside portions of lava flows cooled and solidified allowing the molten interior to continue moving until only a hollow area remained. Large sinkholes also developed at higher elevations when the levels of lava beneath them receded. Other areas were stable enough to support lush vegetation that in some places are now used as cattle pasture. Five of the 19 larger islands have human habitation, with Puerto Ayora on Santa Cruz Island being the largest at about 20,000 people. The Galapagos National headquarters and the Charles Darwin Research Station are located there. A tortoise breeding facility is housed there to provide young tortoises for efforts to restore them to islands where their populations have been decimated or extirpated by man and introduced predators such as rats. Feral goat populations also competed for forage and over grazed many landscapes. Puerto Ayora is the center of the tourism industry on the islands and supports a small commercial fishery. That is a very brief discourse on the islands, and as you can see, the scenery is dominated by volcanic features and dry vegetative communities. Learning about and experiencing the unique plants/vegetative communities and wildlife species found no where else on earth were my goals for this adventure and I'll blog about them over the next several weeks.