Travel Galapagos Islands & Ecuador

Isla Santiago or James

Once a hideout for British buccaneers and one of the stops on Darwin’s itinerary, Isla Santiago, whose little used official name is San Salvador, is the fourth-largest of the islands. It’s a frequent stop on boat tours because there are several interesting visitor sites and its terrain of rough lava fields is an example of the island’s challenging beauty.

One of the most popular sites in all the islands is Puerto Egas, on James Bay, on the west side of Santiago. Here, there is a long, flat, black lava shoreline where eroded shapes form lava pools, caves and inlets that house a great variety of wildlife. This is a great place to see colonies of marine iguanas basking in the sun. The tide pools contain hundreds of red Sally Lightfoot crabs, which attract hunting herons of all the commonly found species.

Named after Dario Egas, the owner of a  salt mine on the island that was once, as a result of presidential patronage, the only producer of salt in all the country.

The inlets are favorite haunts of the Galápagos fur sea lion, and this is a great opportunity to snorkel with the surprisingly agile animals as well as many species of tropical fish, moray eels, sharks and octopuses.

Behind the black lava shoreline is Sugarloaf Volcano, which can be reached via a 2km path. Lava lizards, Darwin’s finches and Galápagos doves are often seen on this path. It peters out near the top of the 395m summit, but from here, the views are stuferal goats are often seen (wild goats are a major problem on Santiago), and Galápagos hawks often hover a few meters above the top of the volcano. North of the volcano is a crater where the salt mine used to be; its remains can be visited by walking alonga 3km trail from the coast. At the north end of James Bay, about 5km from Puerto Egas, is the brown-sand Espumilla Beach, which can be reached with a wet landing. The swimming is good here, and by the small lagoon behind the beach you can see various wading birds – including, at times, flamingos. A 2km trail leads inland through transitional vegetation where there are various finches and the Galápagos flycatcher.

At the northwestern end of Santiago, another site that is normally visited by boat is Buccaneer Cove, so called because it was a popular place for 17th- and 18th-century buccaneers to careen their vessels. The cliffs and pinnacles, which are used as nesting areas by several species of seabirds, are the main attraction these days. This is best appreciated from the sea, but it is possible toland in the cove, where there are beaches. Sullivan Bay is on Santiago’s east coast.

Here, a huge, black, century-old lava flow has solidified into a sheet that reaches to the edge of the sea. A dry landing enables visitors to step onto the flow and follow a trail of white posts in a 2km circuit on the lava. You can see uneroded volcanic formations, such as pahoehoe lava, lava bubbles and tree-trunk molds in the surface. This site is of particular interest to those interested in volcanology or geology.

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Tags: Lava Tubes