Galapagos Part V

Thursday - Isabela

We spent 2 days on Isabela. Passengers are not allowed to sleep on the boats in the harbour (only crew is allowed to stay on the boat overnight) so the first thing we did in the morning was take our overnight bags to the hotel we were staying at. Although this was a surprise to us (our itinerary didn't say anything about a hotel) we were quite happy with the arrangement. Our hotel was very nice, and on the beachfront. More importantly, it had a huge bathroom with hot water, and Mitch and I each got our own beds. (Well, at first we had a matrimonial room, and the two parents had separate beds, but we traded.)

We then took a bus 30 minutes to the highlands to get to the biggest volcano around - Sierra Negra. Here, horses were waiting for us to take us further up. I was very excited about the horse ride. No cars are allowed up the volcano, so the options were horse or hiking, and since it is so high up it is quite wet and I was glad we weren't hiking. This quickly changed, however, as the horses walked SUPER slowly, so what we were told was a 30 min ride was well over an hour. It was also very slippery and muddy, with tons of ruts, so the horses kept stumbling and trying to walk up the edges of the path, which, although was smart on their part, meant that they were rubbing our legs into trees and shrubs and barbed wire. The horses also weren't very good listeners. The horse owner rode with us and kept making them go faster, but they would just run into a bunch so that your knee was up some other horse's ass. It was not enjoyable. Oh, and then Mitch's horse was kicking other horse's and our feet as well, and also biting other horses. It was really not enjoyable and totally terrifying. Mitch wants me to add here that his horse actually fell on the way up (and again on the way down) but that he managed to hold on, and that he actually enjoyed the ride because I swore the entire way up and he was laughing at me.

Here is a picture before we left on the horses:

At the top we had a beautiful view of the calderra which is the area around the opening of the volcano. The last activity of this volcano was 5 years ago, so you could see all the new black lava. We had a boxed lunch at the top and the top and then went for a hike in the volcano (the ladies stayed behind, requesting that we only take 30 minutes....we took much closer to 2 hours...) We were hiking in a part of the volcano known as Volcan Chico, and it was VERY hot. We were glad we were not there in the real summer months for Ecuador as it would have been unbearable. There were sulphur and iron deposits everywhere, causing it to be beautiful colours. There were no animals here at all.

Here is the view of the calderra:

Here are two pictures from the hike:

Here is what Mitch learnt about Isabela from Dario while the rest of us struggled to keep up and kept stopping for pictures: Isabela used to be 5 or 6 smaller islands, but because of the lava flow all of the islands joined together. It is now the biggest island. It is active about every 5 years, so next year they are expecting it to erupt again. The land is different colours, some green, some brown, and some black. Each colour corresponds to a different eruption. On top of one part of the volcano is the location of the highest point in the Galapagos - a 6 hour hike up.

We then had a long and miserable horse ride back down the volcano to the bus.

We went back to the hotel, had a walk on the beach, and walked around the town. There really wasn't a lot there. The best thing about the town was the street lamps that were made out of pieces of wood. We had dinner in town (I had a lovely cerviche and Mitch had shrimp) and then bumped into our crew and went to a nice beach bar at a hostal.