April 27th 2009 - TMHT

I woke up literally seconds before Josefine was collecting me for our guide Lucho’s magical mystery tour. The San Cristobal flat, Trine and Lucho got in a mini chiva taxi and headed to our first stop - the ‘Wall of Tears’. The Wall was impressive, it was very large and had been built by prisoners as a punishment. We then headed to some lovely viewing points, volcanic tunnels and a stunning beach where we swam a little and seeing loads of iguanas.

We headed back for breakfast before getting a bus to a tortoise breeding centre. The centre was very cool, with so many tortoises it was unreal – really giving hope to the species. Highlights included the amount of turtle sex on display (one player was just moving from one romp to the next) and seeing a turtle fight its way the right way up after being on its side.

We left Isabela in quite choppy waters which caused quite a lot of laughter on the boat before more snorkelling. Snorkelling was nice, we went in a large cave where there were many beautiful fish. We got to Santa Cruz and had ice creams and cookies whilst waiting for the others and then made our way to Hotel Espana. We went for lunch and it was not what I was expecting. We had a BBQ in the middle of nowhere with three kinds of meat, salad, rice and potatoes – it was lovely! Over lunch I made a promise to Mia and Josefine that I would read the Harry Potter books when I got home (read them and thought they were great).

We went to another tortoise place after lunch but for once the live tortoises weren’t the most interesting things. There were two giant empty tortoise shells and so we did what any sane group of people would do – we tried them on. Loads of us had a go (including mounting each other to make our best turtle sex noises) and even though they were quite awkward and heavy I stood up in one to do my best Teenage Mutant Hero Turtle impression.

We moved onto a huge lava tunnel (which was stunning) before heading back into town for a little bit of shopping before tea. We ate at Tintorera which was lovely (I had chicken, spuds and veg with a passion fruit sauce) and then headed back to the hostel for an early night after the early start and the long day we had. Tomorrow we head back to San Cristobal and the goodbyes begin again.