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Galapagos Island Vacations

Arrival and establishment	Evolution	Types of vegetation, Island Flora
Geology of the islands	Interpretation Center - Isla San Cristobal	Galapagos species
Galapagos during the year	Where are the Galapagos located?	Endangered species
The Galapagos National Park	Marine currents and weather	Exploring the Enchanted Islands

Galápagos continues adding awards. On July 10th, 2009 was known that the prestigious American magazine Travel + Leisure, distinguished the Galápagos Islands with the recognition of “Better Island” in the category region of Mexico, America Central and South America; and, with the second place in the category “Better Island of the World”.

JULY 2010
• World Best Awards: Click here for more info.
• World's Top Adventure Trips

Arrival and Establishment of species

	We will never know for sure how each species arrived on the Galapagos island, as there exists only a limited geological registry available to natural historians. Nonetheless, claims can be made and backed up with this available information. Historical, biological, and geographical instruction is included in the Galapagos island vacations that we offer. Any animal or plant that now resides on the Galapagos had to somehow make it from some original point to the Galapagos. A colonizer population could exist if the organism survived the initial rather dangerous journey, then, once in a strange environment, was able to reproduce effectively. The question that perplexed biologists and natural historians was how it was possible that so many vagabond and adventurous species survived the long marine passage to these islands given the tremendous circumstances of this initial journey. Nevertheless, meticulous observations of the islands flora and fauna of these remote islands suggest these species were able to flourish because of biological dispersion – the movement of a species away from its parent population. The mechanism by which living organisms were able to journey to the islands may have included flotation rafts made of vegetation or other wastes, or the winds and sea currents could have been or seeds towards the islands recently formed. Birds in flight disoriented of their traditional migratory route, seeds and invertebrates traveling on feathers or legs of aquatic or semi-aquatic birds, also could be a part of the colonization. Of course, the species are present in proportion to their capacity to disperse, passively or actively, and also by their ability to settle down after the arrival. The necessity of an appropriate pair for sexually reproductive animals or a compatible pollinator agent in plants, presents/displays defied in the long term formidable to the establishment. Of all the different Galapagos island vacations one could take, the ones that we offer will be the perfect mix between learning and pleasure.
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Geology of the Islands

	The Archipelago is located in the Nazca Plate, near the Cocos Plate. As a result from the separation of the sea floor (movement of the plates in relation to each other) along the oceanic fault of Galapagos and the elevation of the Pacific, the islands are sliding towards the south and the east at a speed of 7 cm. per year. The theory “Hot Spot” indicates that in certain places around the Earth, there are some stationery areas where the intensity of the heat is greater. These places cause to the melting of the crust causing the formation of volcanoes. The Galapagos Islands, like the Hawaiians Islands, have slight volcanic eruptions, where the volcanic material emerges smoothly forming rivers from lava instead of explosions.
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Galapagos year-round. Calendar of main events

(Click over the month for more information)
January		July
February		August
March		September
April		October
May		November
June		December
Note: The changes of strength and the limits of the ocean currents can affect the climate in the Galapagos; some of the described events above may differ.

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The Galapagos National Park and the Charles Darwin Station

	The Galapagos National Park and the Charles Darwin Station, together in the management for the conservation in the islands. Two organizations work together for the conservation on the islands: The Galapagos National Park (PNG), that protects all the natural resources of the islands in the best state of preservation as possible and The Charles Darwin Station that manages and facilitates the research in the Galapagos Islands.
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Evolution

The Galapagos Islands commonly have been known as “the laboratory of the evolution”. There are very few places in Earth where it has been possible to find such variety of species, as much animals as plants that show many degrees of evolutionary changes, in spite of being in a geographic area so restricted.

When the organisms arrive at the oceanic islands, these are essentially isolated of the great earth areas. If the islands are the sufficiently distant of a source, the colonization becomes an isolated event; therefore it considered them like an almost independent biological unit. The oceanic islands can have species, that although were related to the existing ones in mainland, have evolved of form so different from their mainland relatives, as a result of the isolation in a different atmosphere. This it is the key factor of the evolution of the islands.

It was not surprising that Charles Darwin was in favor of the life that found in these islands. “The process of natural selection”, formulated by Darwin, is a process by which the propagation becomes to change, and the species diverge of others.

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Interpretation Center- San Cristobal Island

		Another interesting attractive in Galapagos is the Interpretation Center, located in the San Cristobal Island donated by the Spanish government and inaugurated by the Prince of Spain in 1998. This center is focused in the interaction between the human population and the process of the “natural history laboratory”, demonstrating that a harmonious relation between the human beings and the nature is possible.

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Where are the Galapagos Islands located?

Located in the Pacific Ocean 1000 kilometers (600 miles) from the occidental coast of south America the Galapagos islands are formed by more than sixty islands and islets.
The Galapagos islands have fascinated explorers and scientists’ overtime.
TThe Marine reserve of Galapagos, was created on march 1998, is one of the most extended protected areas of the world. Its size is 138.000 km2 and has a strange variety of biological communities, with an exceptional biodiversity.

“Considering the small size of the islands we are surprise by the endless number of native species and their confined range”
Charles Darwin, The voyage of the Beagle.

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Marine currents and weather

	The Galápagos Islands are situated on the Equator line and are exposed to the influence of ocean currents that change the archipelago’s temperatures. The climate is pleasant any time of the year and can be defined as having two seasons: • From June to November: a dry and cool season (temperature oscillates around 20 degrees centigrade during the day) where the mist – a type of rain – is not a rate phenomenon. It is the best season of the year to see the marine birds nesting.
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Annual temperature after six years of reading the lectures of the Darwin Station

Months	Max temp. ºC	Min temp. ºC	Hours of clear sky	Water temp. ºC
JANUARY	28	24,4	5,3	22,8
FEBRUARY	29,6	23,2	7,5	25,2
MARCH	30,6	22,7	6	24,9
APRIL	29,5	22,7	7,5	25
MAY	27,9	22,1	5,2	24,5
JUNE	26	19,1	4,4	23,1
JULY	24,6	19,8	2,8	22
AUGUST	24,2	19,1	3,3	21,5
SEPTEMBER	24,3	19,6	2,9	21,8
OCTOBER	25,3	19,5	3,8	22,3
NOVEMBER	25,8	20,4	3,5	23
DECEMBER	26,7	20,9	4	23,3

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Types of vegetation, Island Flora

Coastal zone
This green zone always, is outstanding by the ability to tolerate the salt of some species located in the border between the sea and the Earth. The type of vegetation that is in the area is very diverse. Mangles within the forests and the coves, meanwhile in the beaches are bindweed.

Arid zone
This is a zone with more extensive vegetation. It is a semi-desert forest dominated by trees of dry leaves and shrubs. The plants have adapted resisting to the drought. A great number of endemic species exists. The hills are abundant in this zone by their tolerance to conditions of drought and are able to accumulate humidity occasional drizzle l. It 120 occupies >300 to put altitude.

Transition Zone
This zone is intermediate between the zone Scalesia and the arid one, but it is dominated by species different from those from the adjacent zones. The forest is much more dense and diverse that the forest of the barren zone and often is difficult to say as species is the predominant one. This zone occupies latitude of approximately 200 meters.

Scalesia Zone
This zone of transition emerges between the trees in the forest Scalesia, which is a cloudy and exuberant forest, dominated by Scalesia pedunculata trees. This class of forests is single in the high islands, and is the zone of greater wealth in fertile ground terms and productivity; The forest Scalesia is unique and has many endemic species. This zone occupies an altitude between 400 and 500 meters.

Brown zone
The zone that is between the dense forest of scalesia and the Miconia zone. The trees are covered with epiphytes, moss, livertorts and ferns, which give to the zone a brown aspect during the dry station. This zone has disappeared to a great extent by the human colonization.

Miconia Zone
The slopes of the south of San Cristobal and Santa Cruz are the only places where a dense carpet of shrubs of Miconia Robinsonian exists. The native trees are absent in this zone and ferns are abundant in the layer of boils.

Pampa Zone
Virtually neither trees, nor shrubs exist and the vegetation consists of its majority of ferns, grass and sedges. This in the most humid area, specially during the drizzle season.

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Galapagos species – what you can see during your visit

Galapagos Reptiles

Galapagos is best known for the fascinating variety of endemic reptiles. The giant tortoise is world known and the marine iguana, the only reptile that enters the sea, is nearly as famous as the sea turtle. In addition, there are two different species of land iguanas.

Galapagos Birds

The most famous, of course, are the finches. At least 85% of the land birds are endemic to the archipelago, and several of them are endemic only to a certain island in the archipelago. In addition, seabirds include endemic species such as the Galapagos penguin, the flightless cormorant and elegant tailed gull.

Galapagos marine species

The Galapagos Marine Reserve was established in 1998 and is a world with diverse native and endemic species that has not been explored. It is not known exactly the amount and types of species that make up the complex marine ecosystems, but these includes the endemic marine mammals as sea lions, fur seals, bonefish and cartilaginous fish such as sharks and rays, like marine invertebrates and plant species.

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Species in danger of extinction

Animal species in danger of extinction

Plenty of this endemic species are in decrease. They are threat by the destruction of their habitat and especially by the great amount of flora and fauna species that people had introduce voluntarily or involuntarily into the islands. Among these endangered animals we have:

Mangrove Finch	The wave Albatross	Galapagos penguin
Galapagos petrel	Pinta island tortoise	Santa Fe Land iguana
Endemic rats	Land snails	Sea Cucumbers
Sharks

Plants in danger of extinction

Since the arrival of human beings to the islands species and communities of native plants had suffered several alterations mainly due to the incursion of foreign species that affected the delicate balance of the Galapagos ecosystems.
The botanical research made by Charles Darwin Station is based on the protection and the restitution of native plants ant the ecosystems in Galapagos.

Among the plants that are at high risk are:

Scalesia Tree

Prickly pear cactus

Calandrina

To obtain a detailed list of the species that you can observe by island you can download the document: List of species of Galapagos by the islands that includes the scientific or Latin name.

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Exploring the Enchanted Islands

(click over the island that you want to know)

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