We started tour of Isabela Friday afternoon when we boarded a small boat and left Academy Bay. The ride was a little over 2 hours of high-speed offshore pounding in a small boat, but it was over soon enough and we arrived on the largest island in the Galapagos.  The town there on Isabela is much smaller (only about 2,000 people instead of the 20,000 or so on Puerto Ayora) which was a nice change.  The smaller villages are really fun and informal. 
Sea lions playing by the dock

Sea lions playing by the dock

We started by dropping our stuff off at the hotel, where we had a bit of a laugh.  Lauren I left so soon after getting married, that we didn’t have a chance to have her name legally changed, passport re-issued, etc.  When we arrived at the hotel, they had assigned Wes and I to share a room since we had the same last name.  When I explained that we were brothers and we’d prefer to stay with the girls rather than each other, the proprietor had quite a laugh.  The hotel was simple but cute, and we were looking forward to having internet, TV, air-conditioning, and hot water all together.  It didn’t quite work out that way, but oh well.  The TV was mostly in Spanish of course, but we did find a channel that had English with Spanish subtitles.  We watched parts of a WWII sub movie that was a combination of German with Spanish subtitles and Spanish dubbing.  We were able to follow a fair amount of it, but it was definitely easier to understand the German with Spanish subtitles than to try to understand the quickly spoken Spanish.  I never did get any hot water, which makes my last hot shower on the other side of the Panama Canal with no hot shower in sight.

After dropping our stuff off at the hotel we met Julio, who was our guide while we were there, and took a walk around the town.  Our tour that evening included a small mineral-laden lagoon with a couple of flamingos at the opposite edge (Lauren and I walked by later to get some pics of them much closer and got to see one fly) and a walk along the beach where we saw lots of marine iguanas and crabs as well as some local kids surfing.  It is really amazing how well the marine iguanas blend into the black volcanic rocks.  There have been several times when we were looking right at a couple of them and didn’t initially see them. Juliio left us for the evening and we did a little exploring and learned that there was an election in Ecuador on Sunday, so all the local beach-front bars were closed Friday, Saturday, and Sunday by law.  That was a little disappointing because there were some really neat places with stools and hammocks right at the edge of the beach.

Walking around town with Julio & Zachi

Walking around town with Julio & Zachi

 

Marine iguana

Marine iguana

 
Flamingo just after landing

Flamingo just after landing

We had all of our meals included at the hotel, so we went back for a tasty dinner where we were warned by a fellow tourist that we would be in for a pretty rough day on Saturday (rain, mud, sunburn, weeds, brush, etc.).  She seemed to complain about everything though so we pretty much ignored her.  We also had a nice conversation with Zachi, an Isreali guy with our same itinerary in Isabela who is in the middle of an 8-month sightseeing trip that has included several parts of South America.

We were hoping for a good night’s sleep, but Lauren and I had left our windows open with no AC (we’re more than accustomed to it now, and the weather has been great) and about 4 in the morning, the neihborhood roosters started the morning crowing ritual.  They seem to have a 6th sense with respect to how long they need to crow to wake up everybody in earshot, not stopping until breakfast is on the table.  Oh well.  We were excited to see a volcano and didn{t need a lot of sleep.

After breakfast we loaded up in what they termed a “bus”.  It was a pick-up with a wooden structure on the back instead of a bed.  It had three rows of seats, no seatbelts, and just an armrest to keep you from sliding out.  Luckily, there’s not much in the way of traffic there, so no worries.  We drove halfway up the mountain with steadily increasing mist until we got to a place where the horses were saddled and waiting for us.  The local that worked with the horses picked one out for each of us and we saddled up.  In general, the reins were just some roped tied to the halter & bit, the saddle blanket took a variety of forms (old rice bag, carpet, etc.), and some of the stirrups were tied to the saddles with ropes.  We looked a little motley crew, with only one of us having any real amount of riding experience, but we set off into the fog.  The guide had us continuously yelling at the horses to keep them moving faster, and we later found that the horse hand would ride in the back with a long rope and smack the hind end of the horses in the back.  Needless to say, the horses didn’t like being the back and would ride up against each other trying to get closer to the front.  There were lots of cries of “I’m sorry”, “Oooooo”, “Looks like I’m passing you…”, etc.  My horse seemed to be a little too weak to make the trip, and in the very muddy conditions kept slipping, falling down almost to it’s knees once on the way there and again on the way back in some very muddy sections.  I was able to keep my balance and stay on, but I was definitely thinking about how to get out of the way of the other spooked horses if I fell off.

We climbed to the top of the mountain, and then got to ride for a mile or two along the edge of the cauldron of Volcano Sierra Negra.  The clouds were only covering about half of the cauldron at the time, which made it quite a spectacular sight.  The volcano last erupted in 2004 or 2005, and the eruption was farily weak.  All of the lava stayed in the cauldron and only covered about 60% of the surface area there.  All of the people in the town actually came up and stood at the edge of the cauldron to watch.  After viewing the cauldron, Julio led us on a walking tour along the other side of the volcano (Volcan Chico).  Here there were several small craters off of the same magma chamber, with the last eruption 30 years ago.  Parts of it were like walking on the surface of another planet.  Seeing the different kinds of rocks with a variety colors dependent on their mineral makeup was amazing.  There were lava tunnels, a lava river, folds of lava, a lava waterfall, and several small craters.  We had lunch at and altitude of about 850 meters overlooking the dry side of mountain.  From where we sat we could see the area where the lava from the next large volcano farther north had flowed toward the lava from this volcano and formed a connected island with a bay on each side, sort of like an hourglass shape.

 

The view of the cauldron of Sierra Negra from horseback

The view of the cauldron of Sierra Negra from horseback

 
Walking through the Volcan Chico area

Walking through the Volcan Chico area

We reversed the horse and bus conveyance back to the hotel.  The horse ride was a little hair-raising with all of the mist/rain that had fallen.  Tiffany was yelling/screaming almost the whole way back as her horse would ride along the edge of the brush, trot by brushing against other horses to avoid the horse hand, and then go sliding/trotting quickly down slippery downhill secions. The bus ride was pretty uneventful except for the milk cow that had wondered into the road and was chased by the bus for half a mile or so.  We got 10 minute at the hotel to change clothes, pick up snorkeling gear, and load up for Tintoreras.  Tintoreras is the Spanish word the the white-tipped shark and is the name they’ve given to a small island area by the entrance channel to the harbor.  This turned out to be a pretty amazing place.  within a distance of only half a mile or so we saw numerous white-tipped sharks swimming in a small channel off of the little lagoon, lots and lots of marine iguanas, sea turtles, sea lions, blue-footed boobies, and Galapagos penguins.  Pretty amazing stuff.  The snorkeling was only so-so.  The visibility wasn’t very good so we only stayed in half an hour or so. We did see angelfish, several other colorful fish, and a couple of 3-4 foot rays.

We were pretty tired after a long day, so after dinner we relaxed in our rooms and went to bed early.  The bus left for the dock at 5:30am and we were back in Puerto Ayora by 8:30am. We asked around and the locals pointed us to a local restaurant facing the harbor for breakfast.  It was great food again.  Wes was adventerous and tried the Bolon con Queso — banana dumpling with cheese, which seemed to be one of the more common selections among the other people at the small restaurant.  Then it was back to the boat for a nap and a closer look at the rigging.  The mast has moved in the mast base and seems to be moving more than it seems like it should, so I’m looking things over, taking some pics, and talking to Colin at Mack Sails to try to make sure everything is OK before we take off for the Marquesas.

We pared the pictures we took down to 600 or so, but it is still going to take a few days to get them all uploaded, so be sure to check back.