Isabela
ECUADOR
Lord of the Galapagos II: The 2 Somethings
By LYNDI
Friday, October 3, 2008
I’ve been told I had to name my blog after the second film in the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy, even though I don’t know if I’ve even seen it. I probably did, but to be honest, they all tended to blend together. Sorta like “Star Wars” – I know there was a fight scene between Darth and Luke, I know Hans Solo got stuck in a chocolate bar, and I know there were ewoks, but the rest is sort of a blur.
But I’m off topic. We’re on the Galapagos…So Aaron, Beany, and I went to the dock in Puerto Ayora to buy the $30 boat transfer tickets to Isabela Island. Isabela is probably the least visited of the 3 main islands and the difference is immediately obvious. When we arrived into Puerto Villamil on Isabela, we took a beat-up truck (or “classic” truck, as the owner called it) to a little hostel in town called Posada del Caminante – $10 pp per night, private bathroom and private kitchen, and about a 3 minute walk to the main square. We arrived around 5pm and spent the evening walking around the sleepy little town with sand covered streets, zero traffic, and probably 1/10th the number of tourists. We bought a few groceries, went back to our hostel to have dinner, but instead ended up playing card games and drinking a bottle of rum. And, as you do after splitting a bottle of rum 3 ways, went back onto Main Street to see what kind of night life we could find. Seeing as how it’s such a small town, our options were limited, but we were able to find an open bar right on the end of the pier. All of the details are limited, but I distinctly remember Aaron falling asleep in a hammock at the bar and Beany trying to pick a fight with some other people at the bar. No one really knows why. But we all made it home safe and sound. Somehow.
The next morning when we finally rolled out of bed, we headed to a small lagoon called Concha Perla. We all thought we would just take a look, but the hot day and the crystal clear water was too much to resist. The boys jumped right in – as you do when your bathing suit and shorts are interchangeable, and I couldn’t take it just watching from the dock so jumped in fully clothed. The water was absolutely beautiful and the occasional sting ray and sea lion passed by to see what was going on. After a much needed swim, we headed back to the main pier in town (having to literally climb over 3 sea lions on the boardwalk who couldn’t be bothered to move out of our way). The three of us went our separate ways for awhile – Aaron walking along the beach, Beany searching for food, and me reading at the pier and watching the blue footed boobies sail across the sky and dive bomb unsuspecting fish.
That night we talked to the tour guide at our hostel and agreed to a full day tour of Isabela Island for $70. For cheapskates like us, the price seemed a bit steep, but we were going to go to Chico Volcano, some lava tunnels, and then snorkeling with penguins and rays. Plus, all guides on the Galapagos must be officially certified by the National Park Service, which means he’s fully trained on the unique details of the Galapagos, the flora and fauna, and has all the correct permits to take us to these places. So it was a lot, but it promised to be good.
And I would say “good” would be the correct descriptive term. Certainly not “great”. We started the next day by taking a one hour ride up to Chico Volcano where we got out and started hiking. Altitude in the Galapagos creates extremes – we started at the beach, and within an hour were in a cloud forest tramping through thick mud. After about 20 minutes we reached a path that was considerably drier and hiked for 40 minutes to Chico Volcano’s enormous-10km-in-diameter crater… or so we were told. We couldn’t see a darn thing. But the fog was really nice. And our guide, Andres, told us about the volcano’s eruptive past and how it has affected the island’s formation and transformation throughout the years. And, at least the hike up was nice. Tons and tons of Darwin finches and other birds that I can’t remember. Now, I’ve never been a bird watcher before, but the birds on the Galapagos are pretty interesting. You can definitely see how they inspired Darwin’s theory on evolution since all 12 species are all very similar yet have distinct beak differences that allow them to feed and survive differently in different parts of the islands.
When we got back to the truck, we headed to the lava tunnels and were treated to a 6 minute tour of the fascinating underground caverns. Waaaaay back when, lava flowed through the tunnels, eventually emptied out, and left immense caverns with stalagmites and stalactites everywhere – but not made of rock so much as sharp, volcanic rock. Every time we stopped to take pictures or ask questions, Andres told us we had to hurry, there was no time, must keep going. Not sure what the rush was, but the brief stop was nice – although a more complete tour would have been appreciated.
We took an hour lunch break back in Puerto Villamil and then went to the local dock to board Andres’ colorful boat to head out to Las Tintoreras. This was by far the highlight of the tour. The boat took us by colonies of blue footed boobies resting on rocks and even a small colony of penguins. We docked at Las Tintoreras and got to see a narrow channel where tons of nurse sharks and white-tipped sharks come to lounge and sleep. The channel was literally filled with them, some even resting on top of others. And then the occasional, oblivious sea lion doing the backstroke above all of them. Even the path to get the the channel was teeming with marine iguanas – often in large piles for body warmth. Yet, once again, Andres kept us going at a good clip. He took us to a nearby beach where a colony of sea lions come to rest every evening – including one huge daddy fatty of a sea lion – but we just wanted to go back and look at all the sharks.
We still had the supposed highlight of the tour to do – snorkeling with sea lions and penguins – but the day was getting late and it was starting to cool down quite a bit. So Andres loads us back into the boat to take us to this mecca of snorkeling sites. En route I asked him, “So this is where we see sea lions and penguins?” Um… not at this hour. “Oh, so lots of fish, right?” Well, some. “So what exactly will we see snorkeling?” The answer – not much. An occasional ray floated by, a few fish, zero sea lions, and zero penguins. But the day redeemed itself when two sharks swam right by us. Nobody snorkeled too long because of the cold water, so we headed back to the boat after about 20 or 30 minutes. Only to find a sea lion pup had made himself quite comfortable on our bow. We admired him for awhile but then had to try to scare him off so we could board. As we were drying off and looking at the day’s photos we heard a WHUUMP and found our friend was back. I had been wondering how sea lions get on boats and buoys to sunbathe and now I had my answer – they heave their chubby bodies out of the water and jump. So our friend posed for a few pictures with us and then took off.
For our last day on Isabela the next day, Beany got up early and took off on his own while Aaron and I rented snorkel equipment for $5 and headed back to Concha Perla. The same 3 sea lions were lounging on the boardwalk and when we reached the lagoon there was another one swimming in the water. The snorkeling turned out to be pretty good that day – we saw a huge ray and several little ones, an octopus, some big pufferfish, and a swimming marine iguana – which literally looked like an alien swimming in the water. After a few hours there we headed to the Tortoise Breeding Center where, strangely enough, they have a Tortoise Sex Museum. Ok, Ok, I think it’s actually called the Tortoise Reproduction Center – but it was quite graphic. But educational, nonetheless.
We spent the remainder of the afternoon on our own private beach just reading and relaxing and enjoying the beautiful weather. Our last night in town was almost ruined by an entire island blackout, so we bought a liter of beer and sat on the pier watching the moon highlighted waves. Not a bad ending to Isabela.
