Isabela
The largest island in the Galápagos is Isabela. It is shaped like a sea horse, and is almost visible from every other island.
There are so many interesting places to visit on Isabela, one of them is Urbina Bay our morning destination. After breakfast we were ready to set foot on Isabela Island to enjoy its wonderful flora and fauna. Landing at a black sandy beach, we ventured inland, where most of the animals are found. Our predictions about the giant tortoises were right. They were all over the place from the beginning to end of the hike, all sizes and ages as well.
Most of them were hard to miss because they were right on our path. This made our hike a little changeling at times, almost forcing us to step over them so we would not touch or disturb them, thus following the Park regulations (and using common sense too of course).
The adventure continued, this time to meet the other gentle inhabitants of the area, mini dinosaur-looking creatures called Galápagos Land iguanas. They are plentiful in this area, especially after the removal of some of their competitors, like feral goats among others. This part of our expedition was divided in two, a short hike and a long hike. Both offered equal wildlife sighting opportunities. An incredible number of young Galápagos hawks showed up to make our hikes even more enjoyable than they already were.
At the middle of the trail we found something quite unusual for dry land. Huge pieces of coral heads brought up by tectonic activity in 1954. Evidence of the sudden event are still seen scattered around the perimeter, such as sea urchins, turtle bones, shells of all kinds and shapes and barnacles. The end of the hike we had an opportunity for a quick refreshing dip in the blue ocean.
After a great morning we returned to the National Geographic Endeavour for an amazing Ecuadorian lunch buffet.
In the afternoon we arrived at Tagus Cove for kayaking and snorkeling, both enjoyed with wildlife sightings here and there, penguins, cormorants, sea turtles, schools of fishes and more.
After this concluded we announced two options, one was a power hike to visit Darwin Lake, surrounded by incredible vegetation as well as geology. The other was a leisurely Zodiac ride to see and photograph wildlife. An incredible sunset behind the majestic volcanoes of Isabela and Fernandina showcased the end of an incredible day in the Galápagos.
