Isabela Island, Galapagos

Taking a rather bumpy boat ride from Santa Cruz to Isabela, the largest island of the archipelago. the animals are even more relaxed here than on other islands, after getting off the boat at the pier, we had to step across sleeping sea lions and marine iguanas to get to town. after finding nice accommodation we started snorkeling around the port, swimming with penguins and sea lions and watched the sunset over the pacific on the enormous but almost (human-) empty beach. the next day we went up to the Sierras Negra, the gigantic volcano of the south of the island. it is the second largest crater in the world (10 x 9 km) and responsible for vast lava fields, kilometers around the crater with forests and vegetations like small islands within. after so much fun, we decided to extend our stay at Isabela, to explore an area called tunnels of lava, a lava field covered by the ocean with great snorkeling opportunities. it was absolutely worth staying longer, swimming with gigantic marine turtles, penguins, diving into small caves to have close encounters with sharks and stingrays. at the end the stay, the evitable lesson that one has to pay for everything, also for the paradise and the equator sun: Isa with a slight sunburn, and Ulf with a most beautiful red back burnt: not soooo cool, when you're backpacking, though :-\Read more