Galapagos, Day 2

The noisy engines woke me, but I managed to sleep off and on until they stopped some time in the early morning.

We were close to a town - shock! The bay in which we were moored was calm and had abundant sea lions and turtles. We took the pangas to shore, then transferred to buses and off to a farm, part way up Sierra Negro volcano. If the weather cleared, there would be the option of climbing to the top. We encountered our first land tortoises at the farm - delightful creatures, in enclosures, but large enough so that there was plenty of green grass and lots of room.

The weather cleared, and the volcano climb was on, or a visit to lava tubes for those not fit enough. About 10 of us opted for the volcano, so Victor Hugo was our guide. He was thrilled, as it was the first time in 6 months that he'd had fine, clear conditions for the volcano walk.

It was a steady but easy climb that took about 30 minutes. We had an excellent view of the huge caldera. It last erupted in 2006 and is considered the most active volcano on Isabella.

After the walk, we were taken to a restaurant in the highlands for lunch. We met Giselle and Peter, from Sydney, who were bike nuts! We spent lunch talking about the Lance Armstrong controversy.

We were then taken to the Villamel Point tortoise centre where we met more tortoises, both huge and only weeks old. We also had our first encounter with flamingos. Spectacular! We walked through some wetlands and met more flamingos, lava lizards, saw an iguana swimming, met more iguanas and many finches. A further walk along the beach took us to back to where we'd disembarked in the morning. Unfortunately, we were given free time to go swimming or go to a bar, but it wasn't warm enough to swim, so most of us just wanted to go back to the boat, which wasn't an option. Victor Hugo is training for an iron man event so he went for a run and Whtman disappeared.