Experience the best of Puerto Ayora

Puerto Ayora sits on Academy Bay, on the south coast of Santa Cruz Island, about 1,000 kilometres west of mainland Ecuador. It is the largest town in the Galápagos, with a harbour of small boats, a waterfront promenade and shops. At the Charles Darwin Research Station, on the edge of town, scientists run a breeding programme for giant tortoises, and at the fish market on the dock, sea lions and pelicans wait for scraps.

A path leads from the edge of town to Tortuga Bay, a long white beach where marine iguanas sit on the rocks, and a water taxi crosses the harbour to Las Grietas, a narrow volcanic fissure with brackish water for swimming. In the highlands, giant tortoises roam freely in farmland and forest, the twin craters of Los Gemelos open among scalesia trees, and lava tunnels run underground.

Fresh seafood fills the tables: grilled wahoo and tuna, lobster, ceviche and the fish soup encebollado, and in the evening the restaurants on Charles Binford Street set tables out in the road. Boat trips run to other islands, to see blue-footed boobies on North Seymour. The sea is warmest from January to May, and the cooler, misty months follow.