South Plaza or Barrington is an uplifted platform of basaltic lava that came out from the ocean about a million years back in time, it is assumed it had to be from Santa Cruz.
Our hike today was to look for the endemic land iguanas from Galapagos that we have not seen in the wild yet. To our surprise, we found a lot. There is a big population of iguanas in South Plaza so it was wonderful to start seeing them as soon as we landed. Also as we landed, we found the Galapagos swallow tail gulls that had immature chicks on their nests, the chicks constantly wanted to be fed.
The iguanas have this beautiful yellow-brown color and were waiting patiently under the prickly pear cacti to get something to eat. During this time of the year the cacti are full with water from the rains and normally the pads fall into the ground due to weight.
After lunch, we had sailed towards Santa Fe Island where a kayaking opportunity and deep-water snorkeling would keep us busy in the early hours of the afternoon. Kayaking was pretty adventurous since the waters were a little choppy, we could call that an active kayak! At around 4:30 p.m. we had everyone back on board and we started going out again, but this time it was for a hike that would take us on a boulder terrain, but into finding the second species of Galapagos land iguana that is only found here. These iguanas are unique to the island of Santa Fe.
Getting on and off Santa Fe was also an adventure, the two little beaches where we normally disembark were crowded with sea lions. A few males let us know that the beaches were their territory!
