Galápagos Islands, Ecuador 🇪🇨 

Rocky night last night and I woke up several times as we navigated to Isabela Island.  

We hiked for about one hour to the top of the Cerro Negro and it’s wonderful crater. The misty clouds parted to show us the whole caldera, with a lava field below and a surround of lush green vegetation. The island has five volcanos and the last eruption from this one was 2005.

This afternoon we visited a flamingo pool and the Darwin giant tortoise breeding centre where we saw Cerro Negro tortoises alongside the different species of Cerro Azul tortoises and at different stages of their life cycle. The 100 year older cranky and wrinkled ones, right down to recently hatched. If they incubate the egg at 28degrees it will be female versus a male needing 29degrees.

The beach was cloudy but we walked to a lookout to see that the black lava rock was actually teaming with baby marine iguanas sunning themselves to keep warm. As we walked further and decided to enjoy happy hour in a bar with bean bags on the beach, they also had a bunch of iguanas looking for warmth on a wall. We enjoyed a few beers before heading back to the boat for dinner.  I managed two helpings of Banana bread and chocolate sauce.