View from the beach

That's the side of Pinnacle Rock to the left. It was beautiful on the beach, but so hot I couldn't stand it for very long. I lasted maybe twenty minutes before hopping a zodiac back to the ship.

More geology

Geology

I'm fascinated by geology, but I don't actually know that much about it. I'm having a crash course in volcanic activity this week, and can explain the difference between tuff and lava, but not in any depth or detail.

These curves and striations on Bartolome, for example -- I love that you can almost see how the volcanos made them, the process of their birth laid out in layers of stone.

Bartolome

Bartolome is an islet off the coast of Santiago, and has some of the strangest, most beautiful lava formations we've seen so far.

This is Pinnacle Rock, one of the landmarks of the Galapagos, seen from two sides. (In the photo on the right, look for a tiny white dot on top of the larger of the two rocks in the bottom-right corner. That's a bird. Just for a sense of the scale. There's also a bird towards the bottom of the rock in the photo on the left.)