Volcanic Isabela

​Isabela was the third island on our Galápagos itinerary. It’s the largest island in the archipelago, shaped roughly like a seahorse holding onto a rock, and formed by 6 overlapping volcanoes. Its main town, Puerto Villamil, was the smallest of the three ports we stayed in. Overall, Isabela felt less developed, both in terms of its geology and human infrastructure, making it the perfect launching point to experience the raw nature of the Galápagos. All three of our day tours – Las Tintoreras, Sierra Negra, and Los Túneles – were huge winners, with breathtaking volcanic formations and abundant wildlife. Highlight sightings included Galápagos penguins, white-tipped reef sharks, and the island’s unofficial mascot, the seahorse.

​We arrived on a morning ferry from Santa Cruz. Our vessel, Legendary, had bigger windows so we could see the horizon this time. An hour and a half later, we arrived in the rock and mangrove-ringed Isabela harbor. As usual we were picked up by a water taxi. The driver played a scam on the group by claiming someone hadn’t paid their $1 fee, holding everyone in limbo until a good Samaritan coughed up an extra dollar. At the Isabela pier, we paid a small tourist fee and wrote down a contact email address on a very unofficial looking piece of paper. Nearby, sea lions had taken over one of the boat launches, jockeying for position on the stairs and growling at tourists who stepped too close. Our land taxi driver didn’t come across as very friendly but got us across town to the AirBNB.

​“Flip Flop House” was a modern and well-maintained property, with a large courtyard, a fully tooled kitchen, a laundry room, and a house manual worthy of a design award. The jug of drinking water was connected to a motorized straw, so that potable water could be dispensed through a convenient spigot alongside the main tap. If the jug ran out, scanning a QR code in the house manual would automatically compose a WhatsApp message in Spanish requesting a refill. The AirBNB also seemed kid-friendly, with games and children’s books in both English and Spanish. The room I shared with my parents had three twin beds, a good setup for families traveling. Some other details in the courtyard included: a shower for rinsing the sand off your feet, a hammock, and a welcome mat with a turtle pattern. It was a wonderful home for 3 days.

​We had some bread and peanut butter with us, which kept the hunger at bay, but we soon headed into town to explore and find a proper lunch. As we explored Puerto Villamil, we stumbled upon a coastal viewing platform, a decorative Isabela sign, and a lagoon with wild flamingos.

​There were a good number of restaurants right along the sandy beach, and we browsed menus to evaluate vegan options for Vince and Rachel. We settled on a spot called The Beach, which turned into our go-to destination for the whole stay. The service was friendly, the drinks packed a punch, and the food was tasty. On this first visit, we all tried their maracuyá (passion fruit) juice. I had their pescado encocado (coconut fish) with patacones (fried smashed green plaintains). Yum! Others at the table had their grilled veggie platters which were elevated, literally. Throw in some beach views, and we were happy campers.

​While our day tours on Isabela were enjoyable, there was a lot of unpredictability from the use of subcontractors to deliver gear rentals, taxi pick-ups, and the actual excursions. We booked through a company called Galápagos Native, but it operated as a shell company. None of our vehicles or guides had any Galápagos Native branding. Instead, they farmed out to other operators. Confusingly, gear rental was partially split between the parent company and their subcontractors. For our first snorkeling tour to Las Tintoreras, we picked up normal-length wetsuits at a Galápagos Native office the day before. Full length wetsuits, for those desiring extra warmth, were picked up from a second shop on the way to the pier. Masks and fins were provided on board the boat, a third source.

The pick-up van that collected us from the AirBNB was late, but we eventually made it to the pier and met our nature guide Tito Franco. From there it was smooth sailing. The boat, Manta Raya, was mercifully spacious. A major relief, as we were still a bit traumatized from the overcrowded boat on the Las Grietas tour. The skipper of the Manta Raya was excellent at nudging the boat close to the rocks for animal viewing, and provided both sides equal chances to see them up close. Tito Franco was a great guide, providing facts about the animals at a good cadence in both English and Spanish.

​During the first part of the cruise, we saw Galápagos penguins. They’re the second smallest penguins in the world, just ahead of the fairy penguins of Australia and New Zealand. Given that I’d only seen fairy penguins recently, the Galápagos penguins looked big to me! It was hard to believe there were cold-loving penguins living near the Equator. This species was adapted to the heat, but still had to find ways to stay cool. One jumped from the rocks into the water for a refreshing (and entertaining) bath.

The name of the tour, “Las Tintoreras,” is the Spanish word for the white-tipped reef sharks that inhabit the area. I had briefly glimpsed the white-tipped sharks in the murky reef on San Cristóbal, but the sharks on Isabela were next level. From the boat, we went on a short hike to a viewing area overlooking a shark-filled channel with clear water. There were dozens of white-tipped sharks resting on the bottom in giant dogpiles, with a handful swimming circles above. Seeing so many in one place was awe-inspiring. Competing for our attention were a few enormous sea turtles, nibbling on algae and sticking their heads above the surface, which were also an amazing sight.

White-tipped reef sharks (iguana for scale)

​We returned to the boat and prepared for the snorkeling part of the tour, donning wetsuits and applying anti-fog solution to our masks. The cove where we mustered had plenty of interesting sights, including turtles and an octopus. The octopus was camouflaged when stationary, and I only spotted it because it was initially swimming with its tentacles out.

​Moving as a group, we left the cove and swam across a stretch of more open ocean towards the lava rocks on the other side. Some of the younger kids on the tour were wild in the water, inadvertently tailgating or kicking people with their fins. The more graceful swimmers were the playful sea lions that performed an underwater dance. They dove and spiraled and chased fish, getting so close we could see their googly eyes staring back at us.

​On the other side of the crossing, the group reconfigured into a single file line and swam into a narrow lava channel. You could easily touch both sides, so avoiding a crash required a bit of focus. We were encouraged to swim slowly and avoid kicking up bubbles to better see the bottom, which was filled with… more white-tipped reef sharks! After viewing them from land, we were now swimming just feet above. It felt like a tense scene in a movie where the heroes have to tip-toe past a nest of sleeping dragons without waking them. One or two sharks stirred and started to swim. With the tunnel vision of the narrow channel, we couldn’t help but look down, and hope they took no interest in us swimmers. Sharks aside, the channel also had some interesting algae, a hidden sea lion that startled me, and a funky translucent shrimp swimming at eye level. Along the way, one of my dad’s fins broke, but he managed to catch up with the group before we climbed back into the boat.

That evening, we cooked a pasta dinner at the AirBNB. The ingredients on Isabela were pretty expensive ($10 for a large can of peeled tomatoes!) Ecuador uses the US dollar as its official currency, so there was no exchange rate to consider… only island pricing. Going out for groceries was a good way to explore Puerto Villamil. The town was quiet in the afternoon, but it came to life at night. People gathered around outdoor grills, skate parks, and TV screens showing Copa America matches. Bakeries seemed to be open all day, and cafes that were closed in the morning had their neon signs illuminated in the evening. My dad practiced his Spanish, successfully ordering a chocolate bread from a panadería.

On the second day in Isabela, I went for a volcano hike called Sierra Negra with my mom and brother. The taxi from the tour company arrived early, as the agency had told them the wrong time, so we scrambled to get ready. The driver dropped us off outside a church. After an uncertain wait, a larger vehicle with covered benches arrived to pick us up. The whole shade structure wobbled as it drove, the weary wood held together by colorful paint and a few crucial bolts. We started to drive out of town, but turned back and inexplicably retraced our steps, picked up some extra sandwiches, and then a few more passengers. It seemed the tour company had forgotten some of the guests, and lost time making up for it! With our group of 11 ostensibly complete, we drove up into the green highlands.

​Visiting the Sierra Negra volcano required a professional nature guide. The nature guides had presumably lobbied the national park to add this requirement. We got the impression there was a surplus of guides, and with tourism at 70% of normal, they were struggling to find work. Ours was a tiny 75-year-old Ecuadorian man named Wilmer. To our surprise, he launched right into the hike, leaving the rest of us in the dust (and without an opportunity to use the bathroom). He seemed more focused on finishing the hike than looking after the group. An Italian couple who fell behind angrily yelled at him for ignoring the people at the back. Given the tour company’s slow start, rushing the guests felt especially bad. And the pace made it hard to appreciate the natural environment. Wilmer breezed past a beautiful vermilion flycatcher, a Galápagos bird with bright red colors, without alerting the group. So much for a “nature guide.”

​We were the first group to arrive at the first viewpoint. The Sierra Negra volcano is the second largest volcanic crater in the world. We had the luck of visiting on a clear day. At a glance, it had a simple color scheme: a pitch-black floor and bright green hillsides, both extending far into the horizon. Looking more closely, the floor of the crater was textured with ridges and cracks. These enormous fissures crisscrossed the crater’s expanse, their fraying edges marking where viscous lava flows had halted. The freshest rock was on the opposite side of the crater, a burn scar in the vegetation from the 2005 eruption. We loved seeing the fog rolling over the ridge and into the crater.

​The hike continued around the edge of the crater towards these newer flows. Then it descended the slope of Sierra Negra and entered a raw, exposed region called Volcán Chico, formed by a 1979 eruption. Only the hardiest cactus could grow here. The geology was the star of the show. The buildup and collapse of lava layers had formed the most unusual shapes: huge troughs running downhill like sluices, domes with missing chunks that revealed elaborate striations, sinkholes with slabs of rock at oblique angles like the collapsed roads in apocalyptic movies. I particularly liked the black and yellow gradients on the sulfur-rich hills. The terrain was treacherous and exposed to the full sun. My mom made excellent use of her hiking poles for stability, and proved her hiking endurance.

At the furthest point on the hike, we sat and enjoyed panoramic views of the whole archipelago. We could see down the length of Isabela, and its neighboring islands like Fernandina and Santa Cruz. The tour provided a basic lunch, a sandwich with cheese and a fruity spread. During the break, we pored over the interesting rock fragments lying within reach.

​The return hike started uphill, and an over-dressed member of group suffered from heat stroke. While she recovered, we waited at a shaded picnic area where a horseback tour was getting back in their saddles. Moving once again, we chatted with a friendly Brazilian lady who worked for the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and had many fascinating travel stories. The return journey was made more pleasant by the conversation but still seemed to take forever. Apparently, we weren’t the only ones who felt this way. The impatient bus driver took the vehicle onto the trail to intercept us, instead of waiting for us to reach the parking lot. They drove like a bat out of hell, flying down the mountain back to Puerto Villamil.

Our plans for an early dinner were thwarted by restaurant hours. Our first stop, The Beach, wasn’t yet open. I was falling into a hunger-spiral and broke it with a cinnamon roll from a nearby bakery. We waited for a different restaurant to open, but the hours on Google were incorrect. By then, The Beach was open so we returned there for another meal and happy hour drinks. Their caipiriñas were boozy and limey, their regular daiquiris had generous helpings of mint, and their frozen maracuyá daiquiris were imposing dollops of orange. It was just what we needed after the big hike. We had a laugh over our attempt to pronounce "tuna tartare" with a Spanish inflection when ordering.

​The third Isabela day centered on a boating tour to Los Túneles. From the AirBNB, the taxi driver first took us to a  gear shop called Banana for our wetsuits, fins, and masks. At the pier, we were thrilled to find our favorite nature guide from the Tintoreras tour, Tito Franco, reprising his role. We took a water taxi to our spacious main boat. It was just 10 people on the boat – ourselves, a German family, and an American couple. During the initial boat "navigation" (as the guides called each leg of journey) we stopped at a rock formation with Nazca boobies. The crashing waves gave it a sense of mystery and majesty.

​Out of all the permutations of volcanic rock we’d seen in the Galápagos, Los Túneles and had to be the most fascinating form. The slow collapse of a lava field into the ocean had formed a network of hundreds of interconnected channels and tunnels. The natural bridges, adorned with cactus and shrubs, were hovering just feet above the water. The water was reasonably clear, allowing us to see dozens of turtles below. The color scheme was dark and moody, but the atmosphere was peaceful.

When we first arrived, the tour split into a land group and a water group. As the land group, we took a pontoon boat and clambered ashore, a curious juvenile sea lion in close pursuit. The walking terrain was some of the sharpest and rugged we’d encountered, so both my brother and I walked alongside my dad. While steering him down the most straightforward path, I ended up in the shrubs where a surprisingly sturdy branch slashed my leg. The resulting wound was painful and unexpected. Thankfully, it created a natural flap of skin that minimized the bleeding.
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Tito Franco led us to a several blue footed boobies, including one sitting on a nest and a pair absorbed in their courtship dance. We were much closer to the birds than our first encounter on Santa Cruz. It was also a more remote setting, with no other people or boats within earshot. It felt like stepping onto hallowed ground.

The male boobie showed off his webbed blue feet, whistled, and angled his wings backwards. He also presented the female with twigs, a sort of engagement ring, symbolizing his nest-building ability. The female didn’t seem totally convinced but was willing to entertain the suit. Against this harsh volcanic amphitheater, the intimate scene felt even more dramatic.

​Soon it was our turn for the pontoon boat cruise through the tunnels. We briefly went underneath one of the bridges, leaning back to avoid getting poked by its spiky underside. Another highlight was spotting a bright yellow pufferfish in the water. The scenery was striking, and thoroughly distracted me from the fresh cut on my leg. I cleaned it once we returned to the main boat.

​The final stage of the outing was a long snorkel in a cove with similar terrain to Los Túneles. It was a little murky but packed with interesting animals. It was here we saw the sea horses! They were near the mangroves, hugging underwater branches with their tails, so camouflaged and stationary that only an expert guide could spot them. Easier to notice were the spotted eagle rays, swimming in formation with brown stingrays. There were also white-tipped reef sharks sleeping in quiet corners, large sea turtles grazing in the open, and schools of rainbow wrasse. I prayed that the sharks weren’t sensing my open wound. Thankfully, none approached.

The water was cold, so after an hour of swimming, we were ready to exit the water and warm-up. The crew hosed us down as we climbed the ladder, presumably to take extra good care of their beloved new boat. We snacked on sandwiches and returned to Puerto Villamil in comfort.
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It was the last proper evening of the trip, so we celebrated with a third visit to The Beach. This time, I tried the elaborate seafood platter, which included generous portions of grilled fish, shrimp, octopus, and lobster. Our guide mentioned it was currently lobster season, which draws the spotted eagle rays closer to shore. You could say this final taste of the Galápagos was a feast fit for an eagle ray!

​The process of getting back to California was one of the longest periods of continuous travel that I’ve experienced. It started with a 5:00am departure to catch the ferry from Isabela to Santa Cruz. Upon arrival, the gangway was obstructed by a cute but inconvenient sea lion. The staff poured water on its head to coax it away.

​We had an afternoon layover in Puerto Ayora, where we camped out at the acaí bowl café. They had just gotten their power back after an island-wide outage. From there, we took a taxi across the highlands to the north side of the island. Our driver Vladimir was a colleague of Luis, who had been our main driver on Santa Cruz. Both were friendly and professional. We talked with Vladimir in Spanish about regional accents in Latin America and abandoned buildings on Baltra island.

​The Santa Cruz airport wasn’t on Santa Cruz, but actually on a small neighboring island called Baltra. It had been a US military base before it was returned to Ecuador. The ferry boats making the crossing carried the luggage on top. On the other side, we boarded a bus that took us to the actual terminal.

​The Baltra airport, code GPS for Galapagos, was the best part of the journey. The patches of rock debris surrounding the terminal were filled with land iguanas, who basked in sun and lazily crossed the footpaths. After seeing so many of the black marine iguanas, it was nice to see their yellow-tinged terrestrial counterparts. The terminal also had a surprising number of souvenir shops. 

We boarded the Avianca flight and flew directly to Quito, with no stopover in Guayaquil this time. During the landing, we glimpsed Cotopaxi but the clouds hid its full splendor. In Quito, I said goodbye to the other four, who continued their South America journey for several more weeks. While they headed to an airport hotel for the night, I began a 6 hour layover. I spent time at Café Amazonas listening to Andean folk music, crossed through security, and found a quiet corner by a gift shop. The MVP of the layover was the book I was reading, "A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor" by Hank Green, with an honorable mention to the bag of tostones that sustained me.

On the plane from Quito to Houston, I had an aisle seat in the very last row. Initially I was stuck between a dad and the rest of his family, crying baby included. However, the dad moved to sit with the family, freeing up the middle seat and quieting the baby. I managed to get a little rest. After a few hours in Houston, I boarded the plane to San Francisco. I was excited to see the familiar golden hills of California knowing this was my real homecoming.
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Three days on Isabela was the perfect “last blast” to cap off a year of travel. From rugged craters to the white-tipped sharks, the island delivered on both land and sea. ​My brother did a great job of creating our DIY itinerary, building on his prior knowledge of the area. It was still a logistically challenging chapter, but a very special place that merited the effort.