Day #3: Three islands in one day

Greetings from Isabela, the largest island in the Galapagos. I am writing this blog at 7AM on Sunday 1/7 from the restaurant at the Isamare Luxury Hotel in the hopes of describing our past day.

Original post: Alas, the Internet connection is barely functioning, so I will post just this first paragraph to get word out. Hopefully I can update it more completely with photos later. For now, trust that all is well. Aside from a few sunburns, there are no issues, everyone is happy and healthy and having a great time.

Update: I believe I am able to get this out now, before dinner on Sunday.

Our day began on our first island, San Cristobal. After breakfast, we walked to the dock to board a speedboat for travel between the islands. Every time you travel from one island to the next, you need to submit to an agricultural inspection, one of many measures they take to protect the ecosystems on the various islands. We boarded a small water taxi to be shuttled to our larger boat.

The ride was about 2:45 from San Cristobal.

We arrived at Floreana, with 120 human inhabitants and considerably more red marine iguanas. These magnificent beasts, the most colorful of all Galapagos iguanas, are found nowhere else the world. We were all immediately transfixed, snapping photos and admiring their scales. One student later told me that she cried upon seeing her first marine iguana.

Our guide Marlon took on a walk along the seashore, explaining the unique geography, animals, and plants found on the island (many found nowhere else in the world). We hiked across black sand beaches and along paths of crushed volcanic rock.

The end of our hike was a large volcanic mound from which we could survey the island:

In the background of the previous photo, you can see our next destination: a blue/green water bay where we could snorkel with a wide variety of fish, sting rays, and most of all turtles:

After about an hour at this location, we didn't want to leave. The combination of black lava rock, white sand, blue sky, and green ocean was stunningly beautiful. Many of us felt that this was the loveliest spot we had seen on the trip thus far:

We walked back toward town and enjoyed lunch at a local establishment: soup, rice and beans, fried yucca (similar to fritters), fish, salad and fresh squeezed juice (which seems to be ubiquitous on the islands in a wide variety). It was very tasty and satisfying. As always, there was a different local hot sauce to add. We wrote postcards (to be placed in the famous mail barrel at the mouth of the bay) and enjoyed hammocks.

After cavorting with the red marine iguanas one last time, we boarded another water taxi that brought us back to our boat.

We motored about 1:45 (stopping at a small island that serves as a migratory bird nesting ground) to arrive at the island of Isabela, our third island of the day. Isabel is the largest island in the Galapagos chain. It is also the most volcanically active (in fact there was a magnitude 3.8 tremor shortly before we arrived) and is the 3rd largest in terms of population. We were met by a bus that brought is to our hotel. We had time to enjoy the sunset before walking into town for dinner.

We enjoyed another fine local meal. Most of us were dead tired by the time we returned to the hotel by 9PM. Most of us went immediately to bed, while others talked for an hour or so before turning in.

That's it for Day #3! Thanks for reading. Remember you can leave a comment below, and you can sign up to receive email notifications of updates up at the top.