Enchanted Galapagos Lodge

Set within forty hectares of tropical forest in the highlands of Santa Cruz Island, Enchanted Galapagos Lodge trades the deck of a cruise ship for solid, planted ground. Ten rooms are arranged across three separate buildings, each finished in cedrella wood by local artisans and looking out onto dense greenery. Nature trails cross the grounds. Giant tortoises roam wild terrain nearby, and the lodge runs its own cheese factory, Queso Chuequo, alongside chocolate-making workshops using cacao grown on the family farm down the road. That farm, about a hundred acres in the highlands, supplies the restaurant with pineapples, papayas, avocados, and coffee grown in volcanic soil. A rainwater tank holding 60,000 litres supplies the property, and the lodge has replanted native and endemic trees to push back invasive species on the land it manages. Meals are taken under a vaulted cedrella-wood ceiling with near-360-degree views of the forest. From here, day tours run to uninhabited islands for snorkelling among rays, reef sharks, and sea turtles, and to Tortuga Bay for its marine iguanas. You can hear the highland birdlife from the pool terrace at dusk. The lodge sits close to Puerto Ayora and the Charles Darwin Research Station, with National Park land covering most of the archipelago around it.