Isla Isabella, Galapagos

Wednesday, June 11

Greg and Alice left on the 6am boat back to Puerto Ayora on Santa Cruz this morning, so I had no more friends to hang out with. I decided to check out the various sights on the island that I had missed. I began the long walk (about 6km each way) to Muro de las Lagrimas (Wall of Tears) that was created by prisoners who used to be kept on Isla Isabella. Along the way I made several stops at sights. La Playita and Paya del Amor were two picturesque beaches filled with iguanas and a few herrons. Los Tunos was brackish-water lagoon. Tunel del Estero was a cave right near the shore filled with salt water and tons of crabs. Pozo Redonda was another brackish-water lagoon, but it had crabs I had not seen before on the Galapagos. These crabs had one giant claw while the other claw was tiny. El Estero was a little beach in the middle of a mangrove forest, but the unique thing was the poisonous trees. My next stop was Muro de las Lagrimas. There really isn't a lot to see here, but I did spot a giant tortoise. I guess he was wondering what all the fuss about the "wall of tears" was too. As I was headed back to town, I stopped to climb up to the viewpoint from Cerro Orchilla. As I was climbing the stairs, I tripped and dropped my camera. While it was only about a 2 foot fall for the camera, it seems to have done enough damage to prevent it from turning on again. So, my pictures from this trek could be my last. I am not happy with myself right now.

Tomorrow morning I will board the 6am boat back to Santa Cruz. I am hoping to meet up with my parents' friends who have finally arrived. They sailed their boat from the Bahamas to the Galapagos and arrived on Tuesday morning. I then may also try to get another dive or two in before I finally leave on Sunday for the mainland of Ecuador.


Tuesday, June 10

Tuesday morning I decided to do a guided tour up to the Sierra Negra volcanoe. As we started our drive to the starting point of the tour the clouds moved in and rain began to drizzle. Our group, 16 people, jumped on horses and began the 1 hour or so ride up to the crater of Sierra Negra. The horses had been ridden by tons of tourists and it became obvious when they would not respond to any commands. But, with the help of our guides, we made it to the crater. However, we could not see a thing. The clouds had completely engulfed us and as we stared over the edge of the rim, we could see nothing but thick, white for. We then hiked down the north side of the volcanoe towards Volcanoe Chico, a small parasitic volcanoe that was formed when all of the magma could not escape from the maid eruption site. During this hour long hike the fog did clear for a bit and we could see down to the shore. We also saw amazing lava formations, lava tubes, and colors created from the different eruptions.

After the volcanoe, I met up with Greg, Alice, and a few others to go snorkeling at Las Tintoreras, just off the southern shores of Isabella. We were told that this was a good place to snorkel with white tipped reef sharks. Unfortunately, we did not see any white tips, but we did get to snorkel with about 15 sea lions and 20+ penguins. After not seeing any sharks, we headed into a lagoon surrounded by mangroves where all these sea lions and penguins were hunting for their dinner. They had no problem with us being there and the sea lions seemed to really enjoy our presence as they played and swam all around us for more than 30 minutes.