A conversational travel vlog (YouTube) by Nate and Kara Buchanan documenting day three of a Royal Galapagos cruise aboard the Natural Paradise. The video covers a wet landing on Isabela Island, a hike with close encounters with giant land tortoises (noting lifespans up to 150–200 years), snorkeling with many sea turtles and other marine life, and a short interpretive demonstration about the geological origin of the Galápagos (Punta Moreno).
Chapters
Yummy. Jammy.
It is day three with Royal Galapagos aboard the Natural Paradise. And last night we sailed two hours south to the island of Isabella.
It is another gorgeous day. The sun is shining and it's super warm. We just finished breakfast and had a coffee on our balcony. And now we're about to go on a little hike and we're supposed to see giant land tortoises.
Fingers crossed.
Good morning, everyone.
See you later.
Have a nice day on the Buster. Beautiful day.
So every day before we get on the dinghy boat, our guide tells us if it's going to be a wet landing, a dry landing or a lava landing. So so we know what shoes to wear and what to expect. This was our first wet landing. So we got right off the boat into the water and walked up on the beach. And now we're going to look for tortoises.
This Animal is about 50 years old, more or less.
Quite recognized because the chair is full of lines and because the size.
Come on, baby. Come on.
Come. We are good.
Excellent.
That was awesome.
Yummy, yummy. This is the poison apple tree. The advantage too, but it's poison for us. But birds has no problems with the poison apple tree. Pigs neither. And land tortoises neither. They are so happy eating that like woman eat chocolate. I know that.
This is the coolest thing ever. We saw him, everybody stopped. We just kind of sat down. He checked us out for a minute and then he just slowly walked right past all of us and he would pause and look at us and then he would eat something off the ground and he just kept on going and we all got to take a picture with him. We've been here for like five minutes and we already saw the coolest thing ever.
So we just learned that land tortoises can live up to 150 to 200 years. And he said the way that they know that is when Charles Darwin first first came here in the 1800s, he brought three turtles back with him. Two went to London, one went to Australia. And one of the turtles is either like still alive or has died very recently. And he was 179 years old. He lived that long in captivity, plus, like, however old he was on this island. So there's proof that these turtles can live up to almost 200 years.
Sam.
The hike was awesome. Our welcome drink is delicious and we have 30 minutes before we go snorkel.
It.
Those birds followed our boat for two hours the whole way to this new island that we're about to go snorkeling by.
And like, as soon as we, like got inside side of land, they like just peeled off and went over to the island. They basically just took like a free two hour ride using the, like air currents of the boat.
They never flapped their wings. I just laid here and read a book and watched them the whole time.
So we went snorkeling before lunch. I'm having a hard time deciding how to describe it. Yesterday's snorkeling experience was just like, so incredible that I don't think anything will compare to it for the rest of our lives. But, like, had I had today's snorkeling experience yesterday, I would have thought it was incredible because we ended up swimming with like six different turtles, even though the visibility was a little low. And then we had an amazing lunch, a restful afternoon, and now it's time for snorkeling round two in a different location where the visibility is supposed to be better.
Sam.
We just finished an awesome dive. We saw at least 20 sea turtles, two stingrays, a lot of puffer fish, tons of cool stuff in the water. And the crazy thing is, like, the turtles, they aren't even scared of you. You can literally just like float three feet away from them and they don't care. They'll just sit there and float with you. So now we're about to jump in the dinghies and head over to the island and get to walk on the island that's made almost completely of lava.
Welcome to Punta Moreno. I will need your help to explain the origin of Galapagos Island. I will need three volunteers. Actually four. One, Two. Two more. Three. One more.
Okay.
Here in South America, we had one very, very important that we call NAZCA plane.
You are going to be nascar. And because you are really tall guy, please could you go far away of NASCAR plate 1,000 kilometers. Stop.
That's his America plate. So this one is moving six centimeters per year.
Nasca's on the moon.
Then the dance of the plates, and then. And.
This one shake. Also this one shake. Please go back.
We just got a demonstration on how the Galapagos were formed. I was the Nasta Nasca plate and he was forming islands on my plate. And then they move and then there's earthquakes and then they sink, and then the hot spot makes more islands. And it's just this cycle. Pretty fascinating.
I love how the dinghy rides are always right at sunset.
Like they've been cooking something.
Today is the greatest ESP I ever tried. This looks like the best welcome back snack yet. There were three different options. You never have to worry about going hungry on the natural paradise on both sides. This is some kind of fried plantain with guacamole.
