Isabella - Take Two

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Once again we voyaged across the rough seas to get away from “city life” for a weekend at Isabella. This time, we stayed with our Isabella volunteer friends, Heather and Daniel. Being able to cook our own meals strangely felt like a luxury!

The goal of this weekend trip was to take the “shit your pants boat ride” to los tuneles. Heather had gone on this day trip before and said that it was amazing, but one of the scariest things she has ever done. Los tuneles, is a difficult area to get to, which is why it can be scary. It is about a 45 minute boat ride from the main dock in Isabella. Once you arrive to the area, your boat essentially has to surf the waves into the shallows waters of los tuneles. Depending on the size of the waves, this can be easier said than done. Luckily, for us the sea was very calm and we surfed into the los tuneles with no problem at all. Heather was a little jealous when we told her that.

The adventure to los tuneles may be my favorite thing thus far on the trip. When we arrived we hiked around the lava landscape, which looked like something straight out of never, never land. We saw the beginnings of the mating dance of the blue footed boobies, which is rare for anyone to see. We also saw giant sea turtles gracefully swimming through the tunnels. Los tuneles are lava tubes that collapsed into the ocean and created a mind blowing underwater labrynth. Snorkeling here was felt as though it was straight out of Planet Earth - the underwater caves episode! The most astounding thing I saw was a huge school, probably around 200 or more surgeon fish - a bunch of Dories from Nemo. This fish are not as tiny as the film Nemo makes them seem. Each one is about the size of a basketball. The school of fish swam completely around me along with an equally massive school of other, skinner fish. From los tuneles we went to a bay like area that had 100s of sea turtles and white tip reef sharks - everything was so impressive.

In celebration of all that we saw, we rented the Chiva for the night. The chiva is essentially a large truck with hand made wooden benches installed in the bed of the truck. It is the main transportation on Isabella. At night, for 20 bucks you can rent it for a hour, which is a common celebration on the island for someone’s birthday. We didnt have a birthday to celebrate, but thought it would be fun nonetheless. We drove around this tiny town for an hour and half, picking up passangers along the way and sharing our extremely cheap rum and champagne with them. I think a chiva rental business would do quite in the states - at least I am sure it would be well received in Ukiah...

The following day we did a 8 mile hike to the Muro de las lagrimas. Isabella first served as a prison, kinda like Alcatraz. Part of the prison punishment was that they had to construct a meaningless wall in the middle of no where, with no machinary, very little water and only papayas and bananas for food. The lava used to make the wall also had to be carried by hand to the location. It definitely felt erry to be there - bad vibes were still present!

(Nerdy fun fact - The wall was only half way done because Isabella stopped serving as a prison when a successful break occurred. Every year the prisoners put on a show for the guards. One year, the prisoners decided that they wanted to dress up like the guards and their request to borrow their uniforms, including the guns was granted - Equa Logic! The prisoners then held a sea captain hostage (his grandson is currently dating our friend Heather) and forced him to take them to the mainland. The prisoners escaped, Ecuador decided not to have Isabella as a prison location anymore, and hopefully those guards learned never to loan a prisoner a weapon again!)

The hike to the creepy wall was beautiful with tons of wild tortoises along the trail, awesome look out points and a little path to the only fresh water on the island. When we took the trail to the fresh water estuary, it felt as though you were entering the secret garden - vines were all over grown and it took a lot of ducking to get through areas. Arrival to the water left you speechless. It was clear and had sparkling light blue/green water. Being cautious of sink holes and mangrove vines, you could walk/swim to the mouth that lead to the sea. Here we saw another incredible sight - the diving of about 50 blue footed boobies. They look like darts shooting into the water capturing little silver fish. And as if things couldnt get more amazing, along the beach, right outside town, we witnessed crab city. There were thousands of ghost crabs (the bright orange ones with eyes on top of their heads) making their little homes along the beach. As we approached, they would scurry into their holes and right when we passed they would hop back out. Crab city extended along the beach as far as the eye could see.

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