Marine Iguanas

Today is our last day in Isabela. We bought our boat tickets to Santa Cruz for tomorrow.  Our lodging was named for Marine Iguanas and we will show you why on a tour of Caleda Iguana. It is surrounded by a small stone fence. An excellent sunning spot.

They were everywhere.

Outside Dinning Area

Dinning Area

Iguana's in the dinning Area

View toward west beach

We met a girl Wednesday night from So. Africa who is teaching in the day care center in town. We arranged to meet her today to give her the school supplies we had brought with us to donate to the school. She gave us a tour of the day care center and we had the opportunity to meet the little kids there.

 

We spent the rest of the day relaxing, swimming and getting ready to leave. We paid our hotel bill and give crayons and pencils to the women who worked at Caleta Iguana for their children.

We met a man from Wisconsin who was a retired college business teacher. We ended up eating supper with him later on in the evening. We will be riding together back to Santa Cruz.

The friendly bar at Caleta Iguana

Lending a helping hand at the bar.

A great end to our time on Isla Isabela.

Las Tintoreras

This afternoon we went on a boat trip to a nearby set of small islands, called Las Tintoreras. These lava islands were formed by the end of a lava flow from a long ago volcano.

Our first stop was to snorkel. Our guide went with us and he led us to different underwater sites to see various sea creatures. We saw a manta ray, head of a sea snake, sea cucumbers, octopus, and lots of brightly colored fish that swam in big schools. We swam with some marine turtles. It was pretty neat. We could get up pretty close to them. The current was pretty strong and as we swam forward a few strokes we were pushed back by the current. We spent about an hour snorkeling.

Our guide was stung by a Jellyfish

Then we went to another lava island which was home to a huge marine iguana colony. They have a walking trail around the island.

There is a canal between the islands where we saw white tipped reef sharks. They come here to rest in the warm waters. The guide told us that the eggs of the shark are kept inside the mother's body where they hatch. When they hatch they are ready to be on their own.

There were marine turtles swimming through the canal over the sharks.

The lava rock island is also home to several sea lion colonies, blue footed boobies, and Galápagos Penguins. We only saw one penguin as the colony had moved to the western end of Isla Isabela where the water is cooler this time of year.

Blue Footed Boobie

Sally Light-foot Crab

Penguin On the Rocks 

The red mangrove plant absorbs sea water and then takes the salt out of the water to use for growing. The leaves grow vertically.


We ended the day by running into Huffy and a person he had just met. This man was from Spain but had been in the islands several months working on a video. We sat in the tables out front of the Caleta Iguana Bar and had some interesting conversations about what everyone has been doing and where they were traveling or had been traveling and drinking some beer. Later, we listened listen to the live music and hung out there.

Another end to a great day.

Puerto Villamil

This morning we took a walk around town and took pictures of what the town looks like to share with you.

Pink Caleta Iguana

Local Bakery

One of our stops

Main Street looking West

Main Street looking North

Town Pier

Bringing in the Catch

Nice Restaurant

Hide-away Bar

Hotel

Volcan Sierra Negra

Today we joined a group of eight others to a trip up Volcan Sierra Negra. We met the group, picked up our vegetarian lunch, a roll with a slice of cheese, cookies, apple and boxed juice and got into the tour bus for the 45 minute ride to the national park entrance. We had a Spanish/English speaking guide and headed out for the 5 hour hike. It was about a 9.5 mile walk. This is the second largest caldera in the world.

                                                Our new friend from Cuba, Huffy.

We walked first along a dirt road and then headed up a path.

We were in the highlands so the weather was foggy with lots of moisture in the air.

Looking at the cloud covered Caldera

We move on to the volcano and the clouds are moving away

We eat lunch on our way to the Lava Fields

One of the few surviving plants

The landscape changed from walking on a trail to walking on the lava fields.

The landscape was spectacular, nothing like we had ever seen before. It looked like something from a sci-fi film. The walking was pretty treacherous. You had to watch where you put your foot as the lava rocks were loose and it was easy to trip and fall.

A lava tunnel. The outer shell hardened and the inner core kept flowing.

At the Top.  

We had hiked to Chico, which is part of Volcan Sierra Negra and our final destination. The view was awe inspiring. This volcano is being studied to see how life develops on this type of material. It takes 25 years for plants to start to grow.

David, our Guide talks to us about the area

After a short break we headed back to see if the fog had lifted so we could see what the Caldera looked like

Going Back down the Trail

The clouds have disappeared and we see the  Caldera

The Caldera is 11 kilometers in diameter and very deep. It last erupted in 2005. We couldn't believe how big it was and that it is still an active volcano.

 Great Adventure!
 


We made it back to our starting point, exhausted, dirty and had great conversations with a variety of people.

Check out the Picasa web album for more pictures.