You don't cover any great distance and, except for a climb up a volcanic cone on Bartolome, most are easy walks. Visitors usually stay within sight of the shore. All are escorted by naturalists and move slowly, admiring wildlife and learning to appreciate this fragile environment. In most places you must stay on trails marked with white stakes. No litter, not even footprints, are beyond those trails.
Visitors can wander more on some beaches.
Some are gritty black sand, others red sand, others great fractured sheets of black lava with natural bridges carved by pounding surf. No one was more excited than Ramirez when she spotted a short-eared owl, which hunts during the day, fly over and land nearby. Every time, I see something new, something different,'' she said. Some visitors might be repulsed by large numbers of marine iguanas lounging on rocks, not to mention skittering red Sally lightfoot crabs and, farther inland, maybe a slithering snake. Marine iguanas, the world's only true marine lizards, probably are the best-known animals of the Galapagos.