• What to know if you go

AMANDA J. MILLER/Staff (ENLARGE)

From the 22-room Hotel Silberstein in Puerto Ayora, the Charles Darwin Research Station is only a five-minute walk. It's also possible to book day trips by 16-passenger tour boat from the hotel to Seymour and Bartolom? islands.

AMANDA J. MILLER/Staff (ENLARGE)

The landscape on volcanic Bartolome Island in the Galapagos Islands is desolate but beautiful. Visitors can take a stairway to the top of the island for a stunning view.

Puerto Ayora, Santa Cruz, Galápagos Islands — Making plans on the fly — the way we did — isn't the way to fully experience the Galápagos Islands.

But when the choice is between hurried reservations for a tiny taste of the islands or waiting for another opportunity that may never come, who wouldn't go for it? My friend Donna McDade and I are no dummies.

Many guidebooks advise visitors to take a small cruise ship that travels at night and stops at several of the islands. This might be optimal if you have seven days — and a fair amount of money to spend — and can book well in advance to get the ship and dates you want. We had four days on a budget and a few weeks to plan.

Why the rush? We wanted to take advantage of introductory airfares on Delta when the airline started nonstop service to Quito, Ecuador, then on to Guayaquil, the hopping-off point to the Galápagos archipelago, about 600 miles from Ecuador's coast.

From our land accommodations at the charming Hotel Silberstein in Puerto Ayora, we could walk to the Charles Darwin Research Station, see other points of interest on Santa Cruz and take day trips by 16-passenger tour boat to Seymour and Bartolomé islands. We met people from Mexico, Argentina and Israel on the tour boats, and enjoyed the company of two professors from Mexico City so much we made plans for dinner one night.

Had we been able to stay longer, we could have visited several other nearby islands on day trips but not the distant ones where cruise ships stop — the boat travel time is too long for a day trip.

We missed some of the islands' exotic creatures, including its penguins (we saw specks on an outcropping near Bartolomé as the tour boat passed by), flightless cormorants and Christmas iguanas. Our trip may have been limited in scope, but not in wonder. The highlights:

Santa Cruz: Lonesome George, believed to be the last of the Galápagos tortoises from Pinta Island and perhaps the most famous resident of the Charles Darwin station, was out of sight in the brush when we visited, but his relatives weren't. Enormous dome and saddleback tortoises lumbered near and watched us almost as closely as we watched them. Tiny hatchlings looked impossibly small for the creatures they'd grow into. We came away in awe, and with respect for the research and conservation at the Darwin station.

Because we stayed on the island, we had time to shop and interact with the locals, plus dine on authentic Ecuadorean fare at unpretentious restaurants for very little money. Dinner for two with wine in the white-tablecloth restaurant of our 22-room hotel was delicious and cost a whopping $20. Entrees at a recommended restaurant in town, Garrapata, were less than $10.

The hotel was clean, with blooming vines outside our door, and we didn't have to worry about seasickness from rocking all night in a ship. The beds were comfortable, the pool lovely. And the tastefully tiled shower in our room? Ice cold. The desk couldn't solve our problem until the last night of our stay, when a desk manager we hadn't seen before showed us the secret to warmer water, a tiny dot on the shower faucet. A minuscule tap to the left or right of that exact spot, and the water was ice cold again; get it just right, and you're rewarded with lukewarm water. Despite the shower problem, we'd stay there again.

One afternoon, we hired cabbie and freelance guide Leo Aman for a three-hour Highlands tour of the island, trekking through a lava tunnel and visiting a tortoise farm, where the huge creatures roamed free. Afterward, he took us to a modest cinder-block home he shares with extended family and gave us guanabana fruit from trees in his backyard. On the way back to the hotel, we dropped by a tiny neighborhood store selling little more than Ecuadorean coffee and a few staples.

Seymour: This tiny island has a huge variety of wildlife — sea lions lolling with their young, land iguanas, blue-footed boobies, magnificent frigatebirds, Galápagos finches and other birds. When we visited in July, little boobies were afoot and the magnificent frigate males were inflating their fiery red pouches to impress potential mates.

Bartolomé: We took park- service-maintained wooden steps to the top of this volcanic and desolate island, almost 400 steps up to an incredible vista of the other islands.

Afterward, we stopped at a beach to cool off and spied a Galápagos hawk devouring prey — he was too far along with his lunch for us to determine what exactly was on the menu. Playful sea lions came out to swim with us, along with sea turtles and a wide variety of fish. But we were warned to stay out of the water on the other side of the island, where white-tipped sharks would make for less-than-ideal swimming companions.

Though we would have seen more of the islands on a cruise, how could we feel short-changed?

IF YOU GO

Getting there

Expect to pay $500 round trip (with one stop) from Atlanta to Quito, Ecuador, about the same round trip from Atlanta to Guayaquil. Delta Air Lines flies nonstop from Atlanta to Quito (about $700 round trip), then on to Guayaquil. Delta and other airlines also connect to Quito and Guayaquil through Miami. From Quito to Guayaquil to Baltra Island in the Galápagos Islands, round-trip airfare on Tame airlines is about $390. Expect to pay a $100 Galápagos National Park entry fee, which helps fund park management and conservation efforts. A tax to exit Quito to the United States is about $32.

About the cruise

Lindblad Expeditions has two ships in the Galápagos. The smaller ship is MS Islander, with about 48 passengers (MS Polaris can accommodate 80 guests). Each ship posts a Daily Expedition Report, usually with photos; DERs from all Lindblad ships everywhere are online at www.expeditions.com/dersearch/dailyexpeditionreports.asp.

We booked an air/cruise package through Lindblad, then booked our own flight to Miami to join the group flight to Ecuador. We paid $6,885 per person, plus about $200 per person round trip to Miami, for a 10-day trip, including travel time. The price included everything except gift shopping and alcoholic beverages. Some cabins are less expensive, and Lindblad gives airfare credits of $500 for certain weeks of the year. Rates without airfare range from $4,150 to $6,790, per person, double occupancy. 1-800-397-3348, www.expeditions.com.

About the hotel

Hotel Silberstein, Av. Charles Darwin y Piqueros, Puerto Ayora, Santa Cruz. Full-service restaurant, plus outdoor bar/cafe; pool; laundry service; transfers from Baltra airport via public ferry and taxi. Rates $89-$129 per night include full breakfast buffet with coffee and fresh fruit juices. Four-night packages with accommodations and island excursions might offer savings; a nine-day Island Hopping package lets you spend nights in other hotels on other islands. www.hotelsilberstein.com.

Day trips from Santa Cruz

Two day trips to Bartolomé and Seymour, arranged through the hotel, each cost $68 per person and included a hot breakfast and lunch, snacks, bottled water and soft drinks.

Armchair travel

"Galápagos," a National Geographic Channel three-hour high-definition special, premieres at 8 p.m. on March 18

"Galápagos: The Islands That Changed the World" by Paul D. Stewart (Yale University Press, $29.95, 240 pages with 150 color illustrations) brings the islands and its creatures to life.

Information

Ecuador Ministry of Tourism: www.vivecuador.com

Galápagos Conservancy, www.galapagos.org

Quito, Ecuador, tourism: www.quito.com.ec