It was a little bumpy on our night trip to Puerto Villamil, Isabella Island and we had many sick passengers, including my roommate who threw up in the sink and it stayed full the whole night… I decided I had enough of the smell and went to sleep on the deck chairs upstairs, outside. Though sleep it was not!
Our first trip was before breakfast to Tinoteras which is a nursery for white tip reef sharks. We took a quick panga trip and were ready for what was supposed to be approx. 1 hour walk. Three minutes later we walked alongside the nursery to find only a few sea lions playing and absolutely no sharks- it seems that we had seen all the little ones right along our boat, just before we left. There were about 13 of them there! To make it all a little more ironic our walk was cut short due to trail closure for marine iguana breeding. So a 10-minute walk all up, if that.
After breakfast some of us got prepared to take the bus up to the start point of the hike to Sierra Negra- the second largest caldera in the world. The bus trip is 45minutes and we went from a super-hot sunny climate to overcast, misty and drizzly at the start of the trail. Again we found out that one of the lookouts is closed, and so we only saw lookout 2 and 3. We had about 1.5 minutes of OK-ish visibility before the low hanging clouds covered everything up again!
What we did see was impressive- many fumaroles billowing steam and a crater filled with hardened lava. This volcano last erupted in June 2018. It was a shame that we couldn’t see its full impressive size.
In the afternoon we go into Puerto Villamil –our last stop on Isla Isabela to spend some time in another Tortoise Sanctuary and Breeding Center. We were lucky enough to see two tortoises mating- and the female trying very hard to escape! Our guide had picked up this behaviour by the sound that the male tortoise makes every time he pushes in- a low grunting. We then had a short walk to try and find some more flamingos but only got 2 more.
The group had 1.5 hours of free time in the small town (2,000 people) and we spent it cooling down with beer and ice cream. We did try the local drink- coco loco – cana / moonshine made from sugar cane and coconut water served in said coconut. Not a favourite for me, as I don’t like coconut water. It was mighty strong though!
