Isabela, Galapagos Islands, Ecuador
Saturday, December 12, 2015
"Goooooood Morning My friends" came the call at 6:50am. “Welcome to Paradise. Breakfast will be served in 10 minutes” Roberto announced. It had been a very choppy crossing and we had been thrown about all night. Roberto woke us up just as we were finally dropping off to sleep.
But breakfast was nice and it set us up for our busy schedule ahead. Again we all sat together and it was very quiet this morning as I don't think anyone got much sleep.
Peter had been fearful of this whole trip because his suffers from seasickness, so he had taken a pill before bed last night and slept through the whole rough sailing. Poor Annette on the other hand who had persuaded peter to do the trip in the first place, had spent most of the night throwing up. She was much better this morning though.
do you think they are homeless
The dingies collected us and took us to Isabela Island. We spent a while watching the sea lions and iguanas at the boat jetty as they were lying around everywhere and a few sea lions had taken over all the benches and were draped over them like homeless people.
A bus took us up to the highlands at Sierra Negra where we were supposed to climb to the rim of a volcano and see a beautiful crater lake. However the higher we climbed up the volcano in the bus, it became more and more obvious that we were not going to see a thing. The clouds were so low and there was a lot of rain. Roberto told us it would be too slippery to walk up and even worse for us to come down.
He also explained that National Park rules do not allow for us to change the itinerary. Every boat has it's allotted time for each activity and that cannot be changed, This was a shame in some ways but we understood the reasons why. The National Park wants to limit the number of people doing each activity each day. Besides when we go somewhere, the means there will not be hoards of other people all doing the same thing.
So back on the bus and he took us to the coastal area instead. There was a nice walk Roberto took us on and as we went he pointed out all the wildlife and plants we saw along the way. “This tree is endemic to Isabella, that bird is endemic to Galapagos” he would say. Not only could he tell us all the names, he could reel off all the Latin names too. Very impressive.
speed police
The walk was quite long and it was growing hotter. Most of us had dressed for a volcano climb in the highlands in boots, socks, wet weather gear etc and here we were in searing 30 degree heat walking along a dessert road it seemed.
“Just 20 minutes more” Roberto announced “there is the Wall of Tears and I will tell you all about it when we get there”.
Well almost an hour later and there was no sign of any wall but we all climbed a viewing platform instead. From the top of the platform, Roberto pointed out where the Wall of Tears was – still a good 30 minutes walk away! We don’t know what pace he normally walks at but here was no way we could all walk that far in the heat with no shade or respite from the heat.
OK so now we had the measure of Roberto’s idea of time now at least.
It took us almost an hour to walk back again and the dingies took us back to the Anahi. We had a lovely lunch and we all disappeared for a snooze.
"Gooooood afternoon my friends, we will disembark in 10 minutes. You will need Tevas or flip flops, sun hat, sun protection, insect repellent, your camera and your smiiiiiiile!”
Off we went again, all still blurry eyed from our snooze and back in the dingies.
more tortoises
Still on Isabela but this time to see more tortoises at the Tupiza Centre. Here they had a hatchery and lots of little baby tortoises. Aaahh! The bus driver had a little surprise for us on the way back. There is a lagoon sometimes inhabited by flamingos. He knew there were there today so took us to see them. Not so many like you see on the David Attenborough documentaries but a small colony that use this place occasionally.
We had some recreational time on the beach after that but our morning in the strong sun had left us with fuzzy heads that our afternoon nap had not cured. So Bryan & I stayed in the shade of a little café and ordered ice cream.
The ice cream was home made and was without doubt, the best ice cream we have ever tasted. Jody had banana and Bryan had mango. The lady had set it in plastic drinking cups and just stuck a bit of wood in the top to act as a stick. It was divine.
Back on board we had a nice dinner again and some relaxing time afterwards which gave us time to chat with our ship mates a bit more before hitting the hay. Today had been very tiring and we were all in bed by 8:30pm!
