Puerto Villamil, Sierra Negra Volcano
Six in the morning, the National Geographic Islander is sailing towards Puerto Villamil, on southern Isabela Island. It has been long time since our last visit to this port. The light was fantastic and the tuff cones nearby are lit with a magic enchantment that made us drool. All around birds of all sorts were flying, diving, fishing. It was at that moment when they appeared – a pod of bottled nosed dolphins dancing at the bow of our vessel, whistling, jumping, luring us into the fascination of thinking ‘how do they do this?’
But the time passed by and the dolphins left us, and our attention moved forward to what we were expecting already, climbing Sierra Negra volcano. The weather wasn’t promising and from the beach we couldn’t even imagine the shape of this volcano, the southeastern most of all of the volcanos of Isabela Island. But providence accompanied us during our expedition, and even though we had the constant presence of the garúa (misty rain) the morning was clear enough for us to see inside of the caldera; to see the entire caldera. A vermillion flycatcher escorted us for awhile during a pleasant stroll along the rim of Sierra Negra.
The afternoon was great since we visited this place called “Las tintoreras” where a good dozen sharks were resting at the bottom of a canal, while many baby iguanas were wandering from “here to there” all around. This place was bewildering in many ways; the lava that composes the area was so rough but at the same time so nice that one couldn’t but stop there and contemplate, admire.
We finished the day at the beach. Our guests played soccer, and bathed in the tepid waters that define beautiful white sand, as soft as flour. After a couple of refreshing beers, we were ready to go back on board to continue with our activities and to learn about the wonders that the Galápagos will bring us tomorrow.
