Isabela Island
This sea horse-shaped island is in the westernmost area of the Galápagos archipelago, formed by the junction of six volcanoes. This interesting place has a lot to offer. A very interesting spring tide landing kept us pretty active for the walk…
Urbina Bay, at the very base of Alcedo volcano, is a good place to see land iguanas in their natural environment; at this time of the year the land iguanas are beginning their courtship behavior and are displaying their best colors of the year. Territorial males need to be noticed by the females in order to reproduce, and in this species they are the good-looking ones. Females, on the other hand, are not as attractive; they have a mostly brown coloration and are smaller in size.
The walk in Urbina Bay is probably one of the most remote, pristine walks in the entire archipelago and gives us an opportunity to understand the harsh environment the different species have had to adapt to in order to survive here. Even though the walk itself is a bit hot, the interesting inhabitants of the area keep us busy looking everywhere. Birds were a very pleasant surprise; not only could we hear them singing along the entire walk, but the dark bill cuckoo posing for our photos was a great find.
In the afternoon we motored to another Isabela destination: Tagus Cove presented itself with the uniquely beautiful landscape that we have already learned to love during the first few days of our expedition.
Snorkeling was fun, even though the visibility was not great… many big sea turtles were not disturbed by us as we went along the coast, penguins, cormorants and blue-footed boobies on shore and in the water kept us taking photos all the way.
A late afternoon walk took us to the summit of one of the parasite cones that are part of the Isabela landscape. Once at the highest point, the bare lava flows of the islands made us realize that only the strongest and most adaptable species could survive here. Our respect goes today to the amazing reptiles that we have met along the way…
