Isabela Island

Once plants colonize an area, there will be more life, as all creatures depend on plants. But it is not always easy to start growing, especially in hard ecosystems as our lava fields. Today we visited two different areas, both very young, as we are in the western side of the archipelago where the volcanic activity is very high.

Our first visitor side was a great example of how much the scenery can quickly change due to our volcanoes. Urbina Bay was uplifted in 1954, the total area came out of the water and with it all different species of fish, marine invertebrates and sea turtles died. The best proof of this uplift are the heads of coral that are now expose in the inside area of the island. We went looking for them. The vegetation has colonized this region quickly. It was easy for new vegetation to start growing on what it was the ocean floor. Sandy bottoms, plus all the organic material, formed nutrient rich soil. We walked among thorny bushes, yellow cordia, Galápagos cotton and the sweet smelly poison apple. One of the highlights was finding a giant tortoise on our way!

We spent the afternoon on a completely different part of the island. Miles and miles of lava was our terrain. Here, only pioneer plants have survived, the very strong lava cactus, holly trees, Darwin bushes and Scalesia plants. The scenery changed fast as we had a couple of collapses that were connected to the sea water, forming brackish water lagoons. This was where we saw shorebirds that gave the area the look of an oasis, life in the middle of nothing. Today, Flamingos added a special pink color to this landscape.

We came back to National Geographic Islander with the sunset, ready to start our navigation to the oldest islands, now that we have seen the young volcanoes and their surroundings.