Puerto Villamil, Ecuador, South America

I had another great day on the islands today! I checked out of my hostel, met up with Raz and grabbed some breakfast at a local cafe called The Rock. We went by the dive shop and picked up our photos that Leo took of us yesterday, and then headed off on a small tour of the island. The hostel told us that it would be $40, but we went directly to a taxi driver and ended up getting it for $35. Every little bit helps!

We first went up to Los Gemoles, which is two massive craters at the north of the island. They were formed by two large pockets of magma that emptied out during an eruption, and then the roof collapsed. This left this two big craters in the land. We walked around them for about 30 minutes and took some pictures, and luckily we had great weather for that. The blue skies showed themselves just long enough for us to get some good photos. The taxi driver waited for us in the parking lot, and then brought us over to our next site, El Chato, which is a tortoise farm.

It was so cool to see these tortoises, and especially to see them outside of a zoo environment. The Charles Darwin Research Station was cool, but it was much more like a zoo than I had expected. El Chato was more like a farm where they were free to just wander around, and they could even leave the property if they wanted to. There were dozens of tortoises, ranging from 20 years old to 150 years old. They were awesome. You could go right next to them, but the guides told you to stay about six feet away, just so you don’t scare them too much. They are pretty magnificent to see up close.

At the same property we were able to walk in a lava tunnel, which was very cool. It is exactly what it sounds like, just a big tube under ground that was formed by liquid hot magma flowing through it. The tunnels were big enough for me to walk through standing up, for the most part. This was pretty impressive to see, and that concluded our mini tour of the island. We got the taxi to drive us back into town, and we had time to grab lunch before I had to leave.

We had a traditional almuerzo for lunch for $3, and it was a soup, chicken and rice, and a juice. Not a bad deal! We hung out at the hostel for a bit until it was time for me to get my boat, and then I was off. I said bye to Raz, and who knows if I’ll run into him again. I hope I do, he’s a good guy to travel with.

I got on my boat, the Juliet, at 2:15pm and met a couple of guys from England and Ireland who are traveling together. Harry and John met while traveling on their own, and have been traveling together for a few weeks now. That’s such a cool thing about traveling on your own, all the people you meet on the way. They are really nice guys, so I ended up hanging out with them for the night as well.

I am in a different hostel from them, but we met up in the town center for dinner, and we’re going to hang out tomorrow as well. I was hoping to get a day of diving in, but there is only one dive center on this island, and they don’t have enough people for a dive tour tomorrow. I’m going to try to get on the volcano tour with the guys in the morning, but if they’re no space available at 7:15am, I’ll just have to find something else to do for the day. Fingers crossed I can get on their tour!