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Reserva El Chato

Reserva El Chato

Reserva El Chato
4.5
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  • Julia M
    Lake Geneva, Wisconsin30 contributions
    4.0 of 5 bubbles
    Very Informative and Interesting
    The only way to enter is on a guided tour. You will be able to learn not just about tortoises but about other endemic species and conservation efforts to address some invasive species and other problems the animals face. We were able to see the persevered body of the famous Lonesome George, the last tortoise of his species. Apparently access to view him is not always open so we showed up during the right time. At the end of the tour you can go through another building that has more info about conservation projects being worked on. Overall it was the most informative tour of all the tortoise centers we visited on the islands (compared to San Cristobal and Isabela) although all 3 were very good in their own aspects. If you have some free time I would definitely recommend a visit.
    Visited October 2023
    Traveled as a couple
    Written October 29, 2023
  • Chemtrailer
    Canada404 contributions
    4.0 of 5 bubbles
    Well worthwhile
    A very interesting visit. Our travel agent informed us that many of the highland tortoise ranches are all the same: Rancho Primicias, Cerro Mesa etc .... So we just chose this one. A 25 min taxi from Puerto Ayora. $10/adult entry fee and when enough people are present they launch you off on a guided interpretive tour. We only waitee about 10 mins. Rubber boots are provided and if you're here in the wet season be sure to wear them as you'll be ankle-deep in mud. Walking amongst the giant tortoises was fascinating and the guide made it all the more interesting. There are also a couple of fascinating lave tube tunnels. The whole thing takes an hour. There's a restaurant and bar so time your visit to coincide with lunch.
    Visited December 2023
    Traveled as a couple
    Written December 1, 2023
  • Brendan S
    Arlington, Virginia2,150 contributions
    5.0 of 5 bubbles
    Tortoises and lava tunnels
    This ranch/reserve has over 100 giant tortoises. Old, young, large, small, they roam all over the property. The trails through the reserve also include three lava tube tunnels. They are not that long or deep, but the tubes carved out of lava are a feature I hadn’t seen before. There are also a lot of birds on the ranch. I saw yellow warblers, Darwin finches, egrets and a few others.
    Visited December 2023
    Traveled solo
    Written December 5, 2023
  • Just Joe
    Napa, California220 contributions
    5.0 of 5 bubbles
    Excellent experience & Guide
    Great reserve, LOTS of very old tortugas and a great bilingual Guide. Only $10 gets you a semi-private 90 minute walk through on their trails, turtles, and 2 lava tube walk-thrus. They provide tall mud boots too. I rode a bike there from PTO Aroya and back and it was awesome. Highly recommend!
    Visited January 2024
    Traveled solo
    Written January 4, 2024
  • shalini_rao
    Boston, Massachusetts39 contributions
    5.0 of 5 bubbles
    Excellent visit
    This was our first stop in Galápagos on our way from the airport to the hotel. The lunch and service were excellent - great table with view of the ranch. The group guided tour was very informative and the rubber boots provided made it easy to navigate the trails. The Lava tunnels were interesting as well. Highly recommend
    Visited December 2023
    Traveled with family
    Written January 11, 2024
  • Adomvatik
    Tel Aviv, Israel375 contributions
    5.0 of 5 bubbles
    A Must Go place in Galapagos Visit
    An Amazing place. after the reserve and the museum, this place completes the experience of watching the giant turtles. How they live in a free habitat. Simply amazing. Also, the Lava tunnels are extraordinary. Go with an expert and have the full explanation how they were formed. Don't miss it!
    Visited May 2024
    Traveled with friends
    Written June 6, 2024
  • Camilla304
    San Francisco, California185 contributions
    5.0 of 5 bubbles
    Don’t miss.
    Fantastic. Don’t miss. This was a great experience to walk around and watch the turtles doing their thing. Like all things in Galapagos you were with a trained guide so there’s not a lot of time to just sit and watch, but it was still amazing. At the end, there is a brief tour of lava tunnels which you can opt out of if you are claustrophobic.
    Visited June 2024
    Traveled solo
    Written June 21, 2024
  • Go hard and then go Home
    Melbourne, Australia392 contributions
    4.0 of 5 bubbles
    Wild roaming tortoises, lava tunnels and extinct volcanoes
    Enjoyable stroll through the reserve with the ability to get up and personal with these majestic creatures. The lava tunnels are part of the tour and are interesting without being exciting. Stop on the way and watch the tortoise and cows graze together ! Had a quick walk around the two extinct volcanoes.
    Visited July 2024
    Traveled as a couple
    Written July 13, 2024
  • Georgeglas
    Brantford, Canada86 contributions
    5.0 of 5 bubbles
    Wow! Beautiful creatures who are well cared for. Amazing learning opportunity to understand more about the Galapagos.
    Wonderful way to see these amazing creatures and learn about them. Pros: - Passionate English speaking guide who was engaging and humorous. - Learning about the breeding and life cycle - Lots of time to take photos. - Clean washrooms on site - Restaurant on site Cons: None Lava Tunnels: Lava Tunnels nearby. Lava tunnels are “okay”. Interesting to walk through. Well lit. Taxi driver drops you off at one end and meets you at the other end. About a 10 min max walk through.
    Visited July 2024
    Traveled with friends
    Written July 29, 2024
  • Nicole A
    Fort Collins, Colorado1,511 contributions
    5.0 of 5 bubbles
    Great lunch, amazing tortoises and cool lava tunnels!
    Our taxi driver drove us here from the water taxi after arriving at the airport. First he stopped at Los Gemelos crater. Then we stopped here and had a really delicious lunch. Afterwards, they assigned us a guide to walk through the reserve and the lava tunnels. Our guide was fantastic. it’s so amazing to see all of the really cool tortoises.
    Visited June 2024
    Traveled as a couple
    Written September 26, 2024
These reviews are the subjective opinion of Tripadvisor members and not of TripAdvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews.

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Detailed Reviews: Reviews ordered by recency and descriptiveness of user-identified themes such as wait time, length of visit, general tips, and location information.

Popular mentions

4.5
4.5 of 5 bubbles1,998 reviews
Excellent
1,303
Very good
558
Average
114
Poor
18
Terrible
5

clark5662
Saint Louis, MO180 contributions
5.0 of 5 bubbles
Jul 2021
We landed on Baltra, took the bus, then the ferry, and then a taxi (which had been previously arranged through our AirBnB) to El Chato. We paid the entrance fee and was offered a naturalist guide to lead us on a tour around the property. The guide works for tips and is optional.
We went ahead and accepted the guide and I am glad we did. What would have been a pretty short trip around the property looking at awesome giant tortoises, turned into an hour long nature presentation with someone who knows a lot about the flora and fauna of the Galapagos and spoke perfect English! The guide also led us through the lava tunnel and explained how the tunnel was created.
I felt it was worth giving the guide $10 per person. This is what other guides (who were not optional) charged and our guy did as good as job as they did.
Written July 21, 2021
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.

AlvaroNYC
New York City, NY841 contributions
5.0 of 5 bubbles
Jan 2020
Its amazing place just $5.00 US dollars (same currency in Ecuador) you don't need to paid for booking in advance since is always available spots. the price include the boots in order to walk without getting dirty.
Simply AMAZING experience to me. You can made arrangements with the Taxi drivers from the airport or from the Puerto Ayora it cost apron $40 to $45 Dollars and they wait for you like1 hour unless you need more time you just negotiate with them.
Written February 1, 2020
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.

2016newlyretired
Chardon, OH21 contributions
5.0 of 5 bubbles
Feb 2020
This tortoise sanctuary was our first stop on Santa Cruz. Our guide was Caesar who knew everything there is to know about tortoises and obviously has a love for them. The tortoises seem to be very comfortable with Caesar and "performed" at his bidding. We got some great pictures thanks to him. We also learned a lot.
Written March 16, 2020
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.

yvs100
Acton, MA69 contributions
5.0 of 5 bubbles
Feb 2020
We visited the El Chato Reserve on Santa Cruz island in Feb 2020. They have a small restaurant on-site, which had good food and good organic coffee. They also have a sort lava tube which is interesting to see. And of course, there are a lot of magnificent giant tortoises. February is a month when many of the reptiles are mating - and we surely got to see some of the tortoises getting into it.
Written March 2, 2020
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.

pfefmeister
San Francisco, CA4,367 contributions
4.0 of 5 bubbles
Jan 2020 • Couples
This is a mandatory stop when visiting Puerto Ayora. We took a private taxi from town at $40, with the driver waiting for us. If you have four people, it breaks the cost down to $10/person. $5 entrance fee and free rubber boots - necessary with all the mud! I really liked the environment and the huge tortoises. Great picture opportunities. You pass it on the way from and to the airport, so try and arrange a stop with your driver to cut costs. Well worth it.
Written January 15, 2020
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.

Peter
Rotterdam, The Netherlands75 contributions
4.0 of 5 bubbles
Apr 2022
Reserva El Chato is a 30 minute drive away from Puerto Ayora and it cost me 50 dollars (plus a 5 dollar tip for my guide). My taxi driver was Carlos, a soccer player for Santa Cruz (I had no idea they had their own soccer league on the Galapagos Islands!).

At the reserve I got a private tour from Nayeli, a really cool girl who spoke some Korean and likes manga, and who will be visiting Singapore in a few months. The tour lasted 45 minutes. I saw some giant turtles indeed and also some lava tunnels.

So all in all, it's a short tour, but I do think this is one of the highlights on Santa Cruz.
Written May 11, 2022
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.

navinpasari
New York City, NY218 contributions
4.0 of 5 bubbles
Dec 2021
You can see giant tortoises galore. It has a $5 entry fees which includes a walking tour with a guide, as well a visit to the lave tunnel. If you want to save the money for fees and the time on the tour, theoretically, you can find the tortoises on the road to the reserve.
Written January 3, 2022
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.

County-Hunter
Tacoma, WA3,732 contributions
5.0 of 5 bubbles
Jul 2021 • Couples
We went to 4 different islands and didn’t see the Giant Tortoises (one of the animals for which the Galapagos are famous) anywhere else. And not only do you see one or two of these amazing animals from a distance, No, you can see nearly 100 and from distances mere feet away. (But no touching is permitted of course). And if you want to take a break, you can hike the lava tube from an ancient volcano or relax with a delicious meal at the restaurant while continuing to view them. So amazing!
Written July 16, 2021
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.

Cherie C
Sydney, Australia476 contributions
5.0 of 5 bubbles
Mar 2020
The reserve is definitely worth the visit. You can wander around on your own or hire a guide. Once you get your boots on at a small cost (they are a must), you are free to walk through the reserve and watch the tortoises strolling freely in and out of the park. They are NOT confined to the area, which I loved. There were a lot of tortoises to see the day that we were there, which was great. There are also some lava caves you can visit. Enjoy.
Written May 2, 2020
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.

travel193
Orange County, CA492 contributions
5.0 of 5 bubbles
Dec 2021 • Couples
I visited El Chato Reserve as part of a half day Highlands tour. It was definitely a highlight of my trip to the Galápagos to see the iconic giant tortoises. Though El Chato is a private reserve and you’re not seeing the tortoises in the wild, the reserve is vast and open so you don’t feel like you’re in a zoo or a completely contrived experience. There were tortoises everywhere and it was pretty great to see them walk, chew, and we even saw one try to mate.

After the tour we had a delicious lunch there and were pleasantly surprised that they have a vegetarian option. They served a large portion of pesto (or pomodoro option) pasta with freshly baked bread. I am not sure if the pasta was vegan.

It’s a relaxing half day tour with the lava tunnels and a quick stop at the Los Gemelos sink holes. I recommend wearing closed toe shoes! Not even Keens as it can get slippery and muddy. I was glad to be wearing shoes with good tread.

ProTip: you’ll pass the reserve on your way from Baltra to town and vice versa, so you may be able to fit in a visit on a travel day.
Written May 15, 2022
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.

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Reserva El Chato - All You Need to Know BEFORE You Go (2024)

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