Galapagos

After many years of planning, i have finaly made this dream come true: “The Galapagos”. The main reason was diving but during my liveboard i did several landvisits aswell.

Bartolome island

The Galapagos Islands were discovered by the Bishop of Panama back in 1535. They are located on the equator just 600 miles off the coast of Ecuador. Charles Darwin studied the species here in1835 which led to his theory of evolution. They were named the first UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1978 and later Biosphere and Marine Reserve status was also added. In 2007 UNESCO placed this site on the endangered list due to invasive species, overfishing and uncontrolled tourism, however that was removed in 2010 after these problems were addressed. There are 18 main islands but only 5 of them are inhabited with a total population of about 25,000.

The Iguana is unique to the Galapagos Islands

The wildlife on the Galapagos Islands, both on land and in the water, is exceedingly unique. That’s the reason to come all the way to here.

The male Magnificent Frigatebird has an extremely distinctive feature of a giant red throat pouch just beneath its beak. The males inflate in a display for the females, and the brighter the pouch, the more attractive.
Red-footed boobys are native to Central and South America. They are defined by their distinctive blue feet.
Exploring Galapagos by horse
HamerheadShark

The best spots for diving are Gordon’s Rocks, with its school of hammerhead sharks, and Darwin & Wolf Islands witch were my best divingspots i’ve even been to !

Thanks to their isolation from the mainland for millions of years, animals here evolved into their own species to come with their unique environment.

Galapagos has been one of the highlights of all my worldtrips, and it is a place I would return every time I have the chance.