El Junco Lagoon, San Cristóbal
Short answer
El Junco is a crater lake in the highlands of San Cristóbal and one of very few permanent freshwater bodies in the Galápagos. A short steep path circles the rim. It sits in the cloud layer for much of the year, so the view is often no view at all.
On this page — 7 sections
An archipelago on the equator with almost no fresh water, and here is a lake that never dries. Its sediment holds a record of the climate going back thousands of years — it is one of the reasons anyone knows what El Niño did in the past.
El Junco at a glance
| Island | San Cristóbal, highlands |
|---|---|
| How you get there | Road from Puerto Baquerizo Moreno |
| Guide | Not required |
| The walk | Short, steep steps to the rim, then a loop |
| Weather | Frequently inside cloud. Wet and cool |
| Usually combined with | La Galapaguera and Puerto Chino |
- 1
El Junco is a crater lake in the highlands of San Cristóbal and one of very few permanent freshwater bodies in the Galápagos. A short steep path circles the rim. It sits in the cloud layer for much of the year, so the view is often no view at all.
How you get there
- Taxi from Puerto Baquerizo Moreno
- Half an hour up into the highlands. Usually agreed as a half-day circuit with the tortoise reserve and a beach on the far coast.
It sits on San Cristóbal, so how you reach the island decides how you reach this.
What you actually see
The lake
A circle of dark water in a crater, ringed with miconia scrub. When the cloud lifts you see the whole rim and the coast beyond it. When it does not, you see about ten metres.
Frigatebirds bathing
They come inland to wash the salt out of their feathers in the only fresh water for miles. Seeing a seabird bathe in a crater lake is odd and it is the thing worth waiting for.
The miconia belt
A native shrub that survives almost nowhere else now, having lost most of its range to farming and introduced plants.
What goes wrong
We run these trips, so we know what people complain about afterwards. Better to read it here than find out on the day.
- The cloud
- For much of the year the crater sits inside it. People drive up, see grey and come down. It is not bad luck, it is the climate — and morning is usually clearer than afternoon.
- The steps are wet
- Stone steps in permanent damp, and slippery. This is not the site for smooth soles.
Who this is not for
Saying this costs us bookings and saves the trip. If any of these is you, tell us and we will build the day differently.
- Anyone unwilling to risk driving up for no view. That is a real possibility any day.
- Visitors who cannot climb a short flight of steep, wet steps.
- People looking for wildlife density — this is a landscape and a climate story.
What lives here
- Magnificent frigatebird — Bathing in the fresh water, which they cannot do at sea.
- Darwin’s finches — Several species in the miconia around the rim.
- White-cheeked pintail — On the water itself.
Nearby
Playa Mann
San Cristóbal
What it is →Cerro Brujo
San Cristóbal
What it is →Kicker Rock
San Cristóbal
What it is →Punta Pitt
San Cristóbal
What it is →Cerro Tijeretas
San Cristóbal
What it is →La Galapaguera
San Cristóbal
What it is →Every visitor site we have written up → · San Cristóbal, the whole island →
Questions people also ask
Is there fresh water in the Galápagos?
Very little. El Junco on San Cristóbal is one of the only permanent freshwater lakes in the archipelago, which is part of why San Cristóbal was settled first.
Do you need a guide for El Junco?
No. It is reached by road and you can walk the rim on your own.
What if it is cloudy?
Then you see very little, and that happens often. Go early, and treat a clear rim as luck rather than the plan.
Sources
Every figure on this page comes from one of these. If one of them changes and we have not caught up, tell us and we will fix it the same day.
Planning this trip yourself?
Send us the dates and what you actually want to see. A planner in Cuenca reads it and replies within one business day — not a template, and not a bot.
Plan your trip