With my time on the Galapagos almost at the end, and indeed my whole Ecuador trip nearly ended, I had one destination left, the inhabited island of San Cristobal. I took a short 8-seater flight from Isabela island to San Cristobal, which was insanely cool, mostly just for the views.
The Galapagos is famous for it’s HUGE schools of migrating hammerheads, especially around Darwin and Wolf Islands, where you can see 100s and 100s circuling here. However, these sites are for experienced divers only, and, well… I’ve actually never been diving at all, so I definitely wouldn’t have been able to dive here! So before my trip, I spent hours and hours scouring the web trying to find out if it was possible to snorkel and see hammerheads – literally anywhere on the Galapagos. And I found… Leon Dormido (AKA Kicker Rock).
I read reports that on some occasions (although not guaranteed) you can see hammerhead sharks here, only when snorkelling. And following this, I managed to find some people with Youtube videos where they did actually capture the sharks, quite deep down, but visible from the surface and with free-diving. I was sold!
So I arrived on San Cristobal in the evening and checked into my hotel Sunset View Hotel, which was true to it’s name and with a Westerly-facing balcony allowed me to witness a couple of fantastic sunsets!
Since my flight to Cristobal had been delayed a little, I just headed out to the town beach and promenade, and watched the countless sealions playing and arguing with each other as they can into the beaches and bays for the night.
I then managed to find a restaurant along the sea front, which did a vegan burger with beyond burgers (my absolute FAVE), so I was sorted for the night.
The next day had an early start, which started with a quick trip to the tour company shop to get kitted out with a wetsuit and some flippers etc. I had booked my Kicker Rock boat trip with Eco Challenger, which has amazing ratings on Google. We set off from the port about 7am across the waves towards to Kicker Rock; which sticks up from the Sea in a dramatic spike.
We eventually adjusted our heading and followed the coast line towards a couple of beaches first, as we were taking it in turns with another boat. The beach was stunning, but the weather was quite overcast, so I think it didn’t quite look it’s best, but it was deserted, apart from us and a few sealions and ghost crabs.
We chilled here for a while, and I tried some snorkelling, but with the fine sand of the beach and overcast weather, the visibility here was quite poor.
Finally, we headed over to the rock and got ready to enter the water. It was actually quite a daunting snorkelling spot… I’ve never really snorkelled in open water before, where you cannot see the bottom at all. And compounding this, the waves were actually quite big, so much so, with the waves next to the rock, we had probably a 5-7m swing rising and falling.
We did see some sharks, likely oceanic black tip sharks, or perhaps deeper down, Galapagos sharks (I saw the outline but wasn’t sure – and later it turned out the divers on the trip saw Galapagos sharks, so it probably was these…), but unfortunately, no hammerhead sharks 😦
We were out in the water for a long time, and I was grateful for the wetsuit, even if it was just a short one, as it got quite cold. And apart from a few sharks quite deep down, we didn’t actually see very much at all. But I still really enjoyed the day and trip. One of the highlights was watching the red-footed boobies (which are found on this island) hunting. They basically fly high up and plummet vertically into the water to catch fish. They were like little torpedos entering the water!
That night, I ate at the same place, as it was one of the only places in the town with a vegan menu, and then again, enjoyed the beautiful sunset.
On my final day, I tried to make the most of the little time I had, and did one of the hiking routes from the town towards a beach, via a little museum. The walk was great, well manicured paths through the forest, but I saw hardly anyone else the whole walk, instead, just lots of little finches and other endemic birds.
After a lovely walk, I reluctantly headed back to the airport to catch my flight back to Guayaquil and onward to Manchester.
What an amazing 3-week trip this was. I couldn’t believe how much wildlife and nature I had seen. I caught the bird-watching bug, and saw more sharks in one day than I’ll probably ever see again in my life… From Mashpi to the Galapagos, honestly, I think I will struggle to ever top this holiday, and I am sure I will return to Ecuador one day, and hopefully to Mashpi if I ever get the opportunity…
If I do come again, I dont think there would be much I would do different, perhaps the only amendment would be to (contoversially) skip Banos – the supposed backpacker haven. Instead, I would perhaps go north to try and spot Andean Condors, or spend more time in Volcano alley, perhaps hike Quilotoa loop or up to Cotopaxi. And in the Galapagos, on my budget, I would do very similar, but try to spend more time on Isabela, and perhaps skip San Cristobal. But if I got the chance, I do think I would try a liveaboard, which would enable you to visit the uninhabited islands and see more of the wild natural beauty of Galapagos.
I do hope I get to return 🙂
Travel Alchemist 
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