Floreana and Isabela Islands

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Since I am on a land tour of the Islands and not a cruise ship, whenever we transfer islands we have to spend part of our day traveling by speed boat. This morning we left bright and early for a 3 and a 1/2 hour boat ride from San Cristobal to Floreana Island. It was a long and very bumpy ride and the only way I survived and didn´t get sea sick was by sleeping. The highlight of the trip woke everyone up though. We passed a huge pod of dolphins that were chasing a school of fish. There weren´t just four or five dolphins like you usually see, but more like hundreds jumping through the waves. Some came and played with the boat and the captain said he hadn´t seen a pod that big for over a year. It was an incredible sight and I just wanted to jump out and swim with them! Eventually we had to move on to make it to Floreana for our next snorkeling excursion. The island is tiny and only has about 150 people living on it but it is beautiful and there are some of the huge land tortoises, marine iguanas, and marine turtles to see while there. While snorkeling we saw 5 or 6 turtles just hanging out and paying absolutely no attention to us. It was amazing to be able to dive down next to them, basically looking them in the eye. Once when I dove down to swim with one turtle I looked over and saw another one beside me. It was incredible to feel surrounded by them and to be so close to swise, old creatures.

Another 2 hour boat ride and we finally reached our home for the next three nights, Isabela Island. This is where our guide lives so he recommended a restaurant for dinner and later a bar where we had a chance to experience salsa dancing. It was at a cute little hut called Íguana Bar´ at the end of the pier. We were there fairly early so we took turns dancing with Oswaldo to the salsa music before the place filled up and it changed to Reggaton (similar to hip hop). I have grown up dancing with my dad who doesn´t follow any rules and just does what he wants, so I have gotten pretty good at following new steps, and I know the basic steps to salsa, but dancing with a real Latino man is an entirely different story. They don´t follow the rules either and just know how to move to the music, so it is kind of crazy dancing with them. It was so much fun and it made me want to learn more! We got back to the hotel pretty late, but it was definitely worth it.

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