Galapagos Day 4

Day 4 - May 27
Today started out with a 6:30 AM pick-up to go over to the pier to catch our speed boat over to Isabella Island. You have to take a water taxi out to the boat, there is no other way, and they charge you 50-cents per person to get to your boat. The speed boat over to Isabella took about 2 hours. And it was worse than sitting in an airplane, since 25 people are smooshed together with their bags and life jackets in the main body of the boat. To top it off there is little ventilation, unless you are sitting in the back of the boat, so the air gets hot and stagnant. Three people got seasick including myself. I was doing really well sitting in the back of the boat with the breeze, until the breeze changed and all I got was boat exhaust. So I got sick with about a half hour left of the ride, thankfully the nice Australian couple next me was kind of enough to give me some tic-tacs after I stopped being sick.

After arriving at the port at Isabella, we took another water taxi to the pier. That water taxi charged a dollar per person. We met our guide at the pier who took us to our hotel, which is not as nice as the first two hotels we stayed at. After checking in we had about 90-minutes to relax before lunch. Lunch was warm potato soup, a pork chop, rice, large cold vegetables with dressing, and potato wedges. Dessert was some form of custard. After lunch we had a couple hours to relax and nap before our 3-kilometer bike ride tour.

Our bike ride tour was conducted in a tropical rain. The ride itself was on a compacted sand path up four hills to the wall of tears, which was built by a penal colony. Our guide is actually a descendant of one of the original guards of the penal colony. We did not attempt to go to the overlook because visibility sucked due to the rain. We did stop at one of the beach viewpoints and saw some more marine iguanas and a pelican. Along the ride, we did see two tortoises fighting, which let me tell is a very slow fight, and a male tortoise trying to mate with a very unhappy female tortoise. By the end of the ride we were soaked through. Overall, it wasn't a bad bike ride, might have been better if it was dry, the steering on the bike wasn't so loose, and the seat was more padded. After the bike ride we went back to the hotel to dry off and changed before having dinner at the Endemic Turtle.