By 8am we were on the panga (spanish for dinghy and fun to say so I will refer to them as such moving forward) headed to Puerto Villamil on Isla Isabela, the largest island of the Galapagos and the one with the most and largest volcanos.
Visited the wetlands to see yet more marine iguanas and lava lizards and a lone flamingo. Not as impressive as the flock I chilled with at Laguna Colorado in Bolivia but there was someone in our group who'd never seen a wild flamingo so it was fun to watch her excitement.
Then it was on to another Giant Tortoise breading centre, this time one dedicated specifically to species endemic to Isabela where we got to see what a tortoise looks like as it grows inside the egg thanks to fromaldyhide and some small glass jars. Pretty impressive to see how small they start out next to the massive beasts they become. This little guy is two months old.
As I mentioned earlier, Isabela has the largest volcano within the Galapagos and, as it turns out, the same volcano, Cerro Negro, is also the second largest crater in the world after Ngorogoro in Tanzania. Well since we are here it makes sense to hike up to the rim and check it out right? Thankfully being a large crater (9km by 10km) doesn't necessarily make you high, so the hour walk wasn't too demanding, save for the fact that it continued to be so damn hot and humid. Cerro Negra is filled with cooled lava from an eruption in 2005. See all that black stuff... yup cooled lava. Bad ASS. Now that I've been to craters #1 and #2 I might have to visit #3 but according to my google search two claim the spot so I'll let "them" work that out before I book any flights.
Afternoon was spent at the beach playing in the waves followed by an ice cream before taking the panga back to the boat for a shower, dinner and briefing on tomorrow's adventures which start at 5:45am... Why? Why? WHY!?!
Turns out this is the best time of day to see the Flightless Cormorants near Punta Moreno. Well so be it then! So I maintain I am not a bird person, BUT the story with these birds is that their wings have evolved to a shrunken size which makes it impossible for them to fly thanks to a lack of predators and an abundance of food. Cheers for that Darwin.
Here's one drying his wings after a swim. Once again they are endemic to the Galapagos.
FYI everyone seems to want to say 'endemic' as often as possible on these islands. It has become a running joke between Dor (my Israeli room-mate) and I.
After breakfast we headed to the lava fields, which are these vast baron spaces of black lava with cactus plants and peppered with tide pools where we managed to see more flamingos, white tip reef sharks, puffer fish, turtles etc. 
Then we jumped in our wetsuits to snorkel in the bay and found ourselves swimming with playful sea lions and turtles. Ruben even showed us a sea horse he brought up from the seaweed (think it is illegal to touch any of the wildlife but am still appreciative that Ruben gave me the opportunity to be inches from such a unique being) and then just before I jumped into the panga a penguin swam by me. Obviously. No big deal.
Seriously.
This place is crazy.
You've got to book a trip!
xo
b
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