Alexandra Bahamonde

Alexandra was born and raised in Quito, Ecuador, where she studied Linguistics, focusing on English and French. She visited the Galápagos Islands for the first time while in high school and quickly fell in love with the islands. After graduating college in 1988, she moved from Quito to the Galápagos Islands, where she lived for seventeen years. She took the guide’s course and has been a Naturalist ever since.

Alex began working in Galápagos at the Charles Darwin Station on Santa Cruz Island. While her daughter Roberta was a baby, she worked for the fund raising department, but maintained her Naturalist license, and later returned to acting as a guide on the islands. In 1999, the Galápagos National Park Director invited Alexandra to become part of the Conservation Officers' Staff of the Park Service where she worked until 2003.

Alex has coordinated the International Cooperation Agreements between the Park and its strategic conservation partners -- WWF, the Nature Conservancy, Lindblad Expeditions, JICA, and the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, among others. After winning a conservation award from Sea Shepherd International, she was invited by the Environmental Board of UCLA to give a talk about the Galápagos Islands. She was asked to do the same in Houston in 2002.

Alexandra returned to guiding in 2005 and moved to Guayaquil for Roberta’s high school education. During the summers Roberta and Alex eagerly return to Puerta Ayora on the Santa Cruz Island and enjoy their Swiss-Galápagos family, their house and their little farm.