We arrived on Isabela in the morning and had a bit of a hard time getting into the docks. The tide was really low and we had to be extremely careful about where we went. Eventually we got a lancha (water taxi) to come out and take us, and then a separate trip for our bags (we were apparently too heavy). After getting our bags we grabbed a truck taxi with a Hawaiian lady and headed for The Jungle, a hostel we had heard about from a friend who had explored the Galapagos a few weeks before.
Our hostel owner welcomed us with a "Welcome to the Jungle!!" I knew we´d have a good stay here. The kitchen was more or less off limits but we would soon find that cooking for yourself is overrated when you have dinners available for $4!! After setting up a tour for the next day we headed across town to the "beach" Concha de Perla which is basically a swimming hole. You walk out past the port and through the mangroves on a boardwalk and suddenly appear at the end of the dock and a beautiful blue hole. We would come here most afternoons and hangout, jump in and snorkel if we saw an iguana swimming or a sea lion decided to come play. We also saw rays, turtles, fishes, etc, but the sea lions were the most fun to play-swim with until one bigger one tried snacking on one of the other guided-tour-group-peoples flippers, as if to say "that´s not fair, you can´t be faster than me!". We concluded the day with a walk through the salt marshes where we saw a few flamingos, and also another giant tortoise reserve where we saw little baby ones that you could easily fit four in the palm of your hand. So tiny, yet they grow so big!! We had met a girl from Germany at our hostel and she had mentioned a good, cheap place to eat, so we followed her down to the square and had dinner (soup, bread, rice/chicken/veggies on a plate and juice!) for $4. We will be back there soon.
Our second day on Isabela we had organized a tour to Los Tuneles. This was a little bit of a boat ride from port and we were excited to do some snorkeling. Los Tuneles was basically formed when water met molten lava, this lava field was riddled with hole, bridges, channels, crevaces, even a table formed by lava flows. It was a sweet place to see where two powerful, natural forces met, and it provided a calm place for lots of fish, birds and heaps of turtles. The turtles were chasing the females around as it was that time of year, the largest group we saw was 8 turtles in a "raft" of sorts. After doing the boat tour of Los Tuneles we headed around the point to get some snorkeling in. We saw spotted eagle rays soaring in the water, more turtles, white tip reef sharks sleeping in underwater caves, and tons of fish. Our tour included lunch so we munched on that before heading back to port. And if we hadn´t got enough snorkeling in the tour we decided to head to Concha de Perla again. We were lucky this time and got to play with some nice sea lions, snorkeling around them as they launched left then right, spun in summersaults and barrel rolls, glided effortlessly through the water making humans look like the clumsy land lubbers that we are. It was soooo Awesome!!! Dinner that night was again at the square, our cheap and filling option. ( I think it was called El Encanto de la Pepa)
Day three on Isabela was up to the highlands. We were taking another tour, this one to Sierra Negra y Chico, the active volcanos on the island. The last time Sierra Negra erupted (October 22nd, 2005) it spilled into the crater/caldera (we were told it is the second largest in the world, but we have heard that many calderas claim second biggest, and there is some discussion as to the definition of caldera and classes, blah blah blah). At any rate the eruption lasted 10 days and spilled into the crater, you could still see the ripples and cracks as it cooled. The smaller and visually barren group of volcanos or parasitic cones just north of Sierra Negra have erupted in 1963 for a month, and then again in 1979, for about two weeks. Our guide showed us the two lava flows, the newer one (1979) was darker, while the older flow (our guide said 1000 years ago...) was more red, it was cool to see two different colors and ages of lava rock laid on top of the other. I can imagine lava rivers pouring out of the fizzures and cracks and making there way to the edge of the island to the north. We enjoyed learning a bit about the geology of the islands.
On our fourth day we had to say goodbye to Isabela, but we had some excellent times there, from checking out lava formations, to swimming with green turtles and sea lions, and finding great little places to grab dinners!!
I think I will cover our travel day here too.
Since there are no ferry boats directly from Isabela to San Cristobal we had to make a stop over in Santa Cruz. Our boat from Isabela to Santa Cruz was packed full, but the boat was fast and we arrived in Santa Cruz in less than 2 hours. Now we had something like 6 hours to wait around until our next boat left to San Cristobal. We made the time go by somehow and we didn't even get to Tortuga Bay! The line up for the boats was pretty messy and very much a thing we have become more accustomed to as that seems to be the way things work in Ecuador, unorganized and no lines whatsoever. Eventually we got ourselves and bags on a boat and we were soon off to San Cristobal!!
Two different lava flows.
Luke at our swimming hole, Concha de Perla.
A bridge at Los Tuneles.
The crater rim at Sierra Negra.
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