Omar Adrian

Omar arrived at the Galapagos with his family when he just a year old. His father was a Naturalist in the islands and would take him exploring both on land and in the water, aboard the ships he was working on. At an early age, he learned all about the unique nature of the archipelago and the species that inhabit it. Omar got sea legs before getting land legs and being bare footed on the rocky Galapagos terrain was his natural way. He has happy memories of a childhood spent in Puerto Ayora, on Santa Cruz Island, where he went to an English language kindergarten and spent hours in the water and on the coralline sandy beaches abundant on the island. As he grew older, they moved to Quito, the capital of Ecuador, where continued with the rest of his education surrounded by the snow-capped Andes. They would return to the islands during summer vacations, however, and these visits grew longer as Omar grew up. He got to witness first-hand how his hometown grew from small rural village to commercial town. Eventually, Puerto Ayora got too big for the family’s tastes, so they moved to San Cristobal Island, the place that he considers home to this day.

Omar became very interested in the development of society and cultural movements, so when the time came, he earned a degree in social communication and began to work as a journalist, in Quito. His final thesis for his degree was on the subject of “Reading in the Galapagos Islands”, looking at the fact that there are no bookstores in the Galapagos province, and what that meant for the population. He graduated in 2017 and entered the Galapagos National Park course for naturalist guides. He has also since become a professional diver and photographer, and has sailed thousands of nautical miles, learning, and teaching about the magical islands that he loves so much.