A Sea Lion Went for a Swim in a Galápagos Hotel Pool and There's Video

When you go to the Galápagos, you expect to see wildlife. It’s everywhere: giant tortoises, blue-footed boobies, even Galápagos penguins — in fact, there are more than 2,000 endemic species throughout the islands.

What you might not expect, however, is a sea lion going for a swim in your hotel’s pool as you eat dinner. But that’s exactly what a group of visitors saw as they sat outside and watched the spirited animal do it’s thing.

“An unexpected guest crashed our Galapagos trip!” read a caption on a video shared by travel group Atlas Obscura. “This gatecrasher saw our travelers having a quiet dinner in Puerto Ayora and wanted in on the action—as well as a dip in a nearby pool.”

In the video, the plucky sea lion first climbs over a fence and hobbles up to the deck where it swiftly dives into the hotel’s pool, swimming to the opposite side to the delight of onlookers. In the post, Atlas Obscura said that while they “can’t promise surprise sea lion appearances every time,” there is lots to discover on their Expedition Galapagos trips.

And as with any adorable animal encounter, the video was a hit on Instagram with more than 35,000 views, and commenters viewers saying this was “travel goals.”

Sea lions are the largest animals in the Galápagos with males weighing about 600 pounds and are commonly seen sunning themselves on the beaches — we don’t blame them, that’s one of our favorite activities too.

And they aren’t the only animals that think a hotel’s pool looks like a good place to stop for a break. In August 2018, a trio of elephants in South Africa’s Kruger National Park stopped to have a drink at a hotel’s pool to the delight of a pair of tourists who were sitting on the deck.