Splash!
Our ride to Isabela was not the smoothest ride ever. Our boat was practically flying! It was even worse than the ride to the Great Barrier Reef. Luckily, there were not many people on the boat and nobody got sick.
Then finally after two hours we saw land – and sea lions!
When we got off of the boat, we stopped on the dock to look at all of the sea lions, crabs, iguanas, pelicans and penguins. We were amazed to see all of the wildlife.
Once we checked into our hostel, we went on a short walk near the water. We saw sea lions everywhere! On the benches, inside boats and even in the middle of the path!
One time there was a mother sea lion with it’s two babies lying in the middle of the path.
My dad crossed with no problems, but when my mom went to cross, the mother stood up and roared at her! When another lady tried to pass, it roared at her too! Luckily, it walked away so we were all able to pass.
We liked to walk along the beach, through the small town and chat with the people who were on the flying boat with us. To finish off each night, we would get fresh fish for dinner. Yum, yum!
One day, we decided to go the Wall of Tears which is a sad tourist attraction. We rented bikes and rode along the beach to get there. The beach was perfectly flat so it was not too hard to ride.
Once we got to the path that takes us to the wall, we thought it would be easier; but it was not. It was fun seeing all of the iguanas, blue footed boobies, and turtles either sunbathing, or making their way across the path.
Finally, we arrived at the Wall of Tears which was a sad sight. From 1944 to 1959, Isabela was a prison island just like Australia and Prison Island in Zanzibar. The Wall of Tears was built by the prisoners for no reason except to keep them busy working. Many of the prisoners died building this because of working all day in the heat, no safety equipment and not enough food or water. Locals even say that they hear cries coming from the area from those who died at the wall.
Before heading back to our hostel, we went to see a special bird that we don’t see very often – Flamingos!
I love these birds because they are so pretty and pink! We saw them swimming and eating. I think they are also interesting because they have a backwards knee that we could see after they went underwater to get some food.
On another day, we went on a long hike up an active volcano called Sierra Negra. It is the biggest volcano on Isabela with a caldera of 11km long. It looks like the surface of the planet Mars because of the all the craters. It has erupted a number of times – in fact there is a pattern that it erupts every 25 years! It last erupted in 2005. There were a lot of holes full of hot air that would work really well at home during the winter. It was a perfect day for hiking in Isabela because it was raining, cloudy and cool and we didn’t have to worry about being scorched by the sun. The views were beautiful at the top of the volcano. The hike was not hard, but it was really fun. We have seen volcano craters in Tanzania and in Hawaii. We also saw a volcano in Santa Cruz too. I wonder if we will see any more on our travels…
For more information on the eruptions, click here.
We stayed at a nice hostel called Hostel Tortuga right down the street from the beach.
Since we were doing a lot of exercise, we had a lot of laundry to wash in the shower. We hung up two clothes lines with one end attached to a large bookshelf and the other to the window frame. The wet clothes were really heavy and the bookshelf almost fell on top of my mom. This is how we travel:
Before going on our flying boat back to Santa Cruz we decided to snorkel near the beach. I am glad we did! We swam with all kinds of different fish, plus a huge group of stingrays, sea lions and penguins!
We even saw an Iguana swimming which really freaked us out at first because we thought it was a sea snake.
My favourites were the black fish because if we stayed really still, they would come right up to our camera!
I also loved diving down and looking at starfish and other fish. It was so awesome.
We also had more sea lions blocking our path and barking at us, but we made it past them.
Here are some more photos from the island:
One of my favourite parts of Isabela was seeing all of the different kinds of birds and fish that I had never seen before. Here are some photos from this island:
Well, time to go ride that flying boat!
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