One more day

The Galapagos is winding down now... we are on day 10 of 11. Sad. Instead of doing a long boat tour we were able to stay on three of the main islands and do little day trips from the port towns. We just got back from our three night stay on Isla Isabella.

Isabella is absolutely beautiful and it has the only port town with a big beautiful beach (right in town). It is one of the newer islands in the Galapagos (and by newer I mean it is still millions of years old) and has an active volcano called Sierra Negra that last erupted in 2005. The day we arrived it was almost 5:00 and Eduardo picked us up from the pier. We dropped our monster backpacks off at the hotel and took our small backpacks with us. Eduardo was going to be our guide for the following day but first he wanted to show us around town to get oriented. He took us by the lagoon where 6 flamingos flew in and landed right infront of my face in the lagoon!!! He said we are VERY lucky to see that. Most of the flamingos live on the West side of the island, far away from the people. I learned that the reason flamingos are pink is because of their high alpha and beta-carotene diet which consists mostly of crustaceans and mollusks. They are actually born white-ish/gray-ish and the pink color of flamingos vary in different parts of the world. These litte guys where light pink. So that was exciting. We got out of the car so fast to take pictures of the flamingos we forgot about our bags and then the van was GONE! Luckily this is a safe and honest town because we called the driver and he brought our bags to us with everything in them. Passport, all my money and credit cards, small camera, journal, etc. Phew! That night we had dinner with a girl named Melanie from Germany. I have been eating fresh fish every day!

Day two we woke up early, had breakfast, made some sandwiches to-go, and left for our full day volcano and snorkel tour by 8am. We drove close to the top of Sierra Negra and jumped on some horses for an hour and a half. My horse was the mean guy, of course! I would be grouchy too if I had rope in my mouth instead of a real bit. And they dont use horse shoes either. We were in the wetlands so it sprinkled the whole time which made for a slippery and sketchy ride. At the tip top of Sierra Negra we were able to see down into the crater. Supposedly it is the second largest crater in the world. We hiked down across the lava fields to a smaller vocano called Volcan Chico. I felt like I was walking on Mars or maybe Earth 50 million years ago. It was pretty wild! The horseback ride down the slippery, muddy path that we came up was NOT awesome. These horses were slipping and sliding ALL over the place. Meanwhile the horse master comes up from behind and whips them to go faster! It was the most extreme horseback session I have ever experienced. Not to mention that my horse tried to buck me off. Both back legs came off the ground and tapped another girl somewhere in the knee area (while she was ON her horse... her horse bit my horse). That means his legs had to come up 5 feet and I almost went over the handlebars if you know what Im sayin. But I held on. All that mechanical bull experience just paid off! I was so happy to see the stables at the end! I jumped off that horse and never looked back! After the volcano we went snorkeling and saw two large sharks, one eagle ray, one big sea turtle, aaaand hmm oh we held a sea cucumber and it pooped on Prati! That night an retired American guy named Gary joined us for dinner. We also ate with two Italians that were on my diving trip last week, and Melanie from Germany. I dont know what we talked about but it was THE most entertaining dinner we have had on this trip. Gary is a CHARACTER! He is sailing around the world for five years and he only started two months ago. I like his style.

And yesterday we simply relaxed in our hammocks and on the beach ALL day. We played beach golf and had a few beers at sunset. It felt so nice to relax. We have been on the go for over five weeks so we just did absolutely nothing and it was perfect!