The one everyone raves about: Isabella. Part 2.
Volcán Sierra Negra.
Above, The colors of Volcán Chico.
Part 3 of the series “Honeymoon in Galápagos : Two mates, island hopping, on a budget.”
By one of the many, but probably more thrifty, Andrew Currie’s of this world.
Now if experiences of swimming with sea lions in their natural environment without any sort of human influence is not enough to rave about, maybe the following activity will get you thinking that Isabela is worth visiting.
Volcán Sierra Negra
The day after arriving at Isabela began with a 35 minute shuttle transfer to the start of a walking trail with a bunch of other gringos. Carrying our included lunch and raincoats in case of inevitable drizzle, we started the five hour hike gradually climbing a few hundred meters to the side of a volcano that last erupted in 2005. By the time we reached the top, cloud cover ensured that we were unable to see the other side of this enormous cavity, which before this day I would have called a crater. One of the benefits of selecting a tour with a bilingual guide is that they can explain to you that in fact a crater is a cup shaped cavity such as this that is under 2 km in diameter. However, a caldera, the second largest active example of which we were standing beside, is anything over 2 km in diameter.
As we walked, I got to chatting with Omar, from Tasmania in Australia but of Chilean heritage. He was travelling slowly through South America with his girlfriend. We chatted about the amazing places they had seen and the fact that their experience was coming to an end. I asked them if their was anywhere they hadn’t made it to that they were dying to get to and they mentioned the Uyuni Salt Flats in Bolivia. I told them not to worry about it because
It’s not that good anyway
But I couldn’t leave it at that… In honesty my day there in 2014 is one of the highlights of my travels, if not my life.
I hadn’t asked him this yet, but it turns out that his warning label would be
Caution: Shit stirrer.
So when he seemed to get upset at the fact that I had told them that they were going to miss an amazing place by not visiting Uyuni I felt horrible… Not too long later he assured me that they weren’t worried about it and they went about snapping their photos of the amazing lava flow which resembled a moon landscape on our way to Volcán Chico on the north western side of the caldera.
(3 points/total points 226)
As we stood next to the beauty and barren landscape that is Volcán Chico, one of our group from Barcalona was chatting to our guide in Spanish. I was listening intently as I tried to decipher their conversation. Suddenly, the Catalan turned to me and apologised for being rude. I was in shock.
I was grateful for the fact that he wanted to be polite, but I took the opportunity to practice my Spanish by telling him that speaking his own language in a country where his language is also native was nothing remotely close to rude. However, I doubt what I said came across this elequently.
We ate lunch under a tree that is thought to have been planted by hunters in the 1800s as there are only a few of it’s kind in the area. The thought is that it was done to offer shade to future generations of hunters, however I hope whomever planted it is happy enough that it now shades tourists who are more interested in preserving the animal life in the area than taking it home for dinner.
Alex and I were a bit slower to finish than the rest, but we backed ourselves to be able to make it back in time to catch the truck. So we took our time. That extra five minutes offered us a fantastic experience of golden finches and other birds joining us for a song and a few crumbs left by the group.
It also offered us the opportunity to share one of the most in depth conversations about mental health/illness that I can remember. One which I’m not sure we would have had if there were other people around, but I am so thankful for the opportunity to listen and share.
After wandering back in drizzling rain, we met up with the group with a couple of minutes to spare and then made our way back to town.
If you find yourself on Isabela, and this sounds interesting, my recommendation is to spend U$35 and do this hike. You’ll find yourself back in Puerto Villamil by 1:30pm after 5 hours of amazing scenery and with enough of the day to explore more of this wonderful island if you so choose. As an added bonus, with any luck you’ll meet a great bunch of people to share this experience with and maybe you’ll even know the people/person you are travelling with much better than when you started.
