Another early start. Up at 5, breakfast at 6 and by 6:30 the taxi arrived to get us to the airport. Within minutes we had our (handwritten!) boarding passes and had our luggage checked. We then had to walk through the departures hall and security to board the small BN-11airplane for a 45 minute flight to Isabela.
We arrived at 8 and quickly discovered that this would be the less developed island of the three we are visiting. The airport was deserted, there were no taxis waiting and there are no sealed roads. After a few minutes a taxi did arrive which we shared with one of the locals who was on our flight. Five minutes later we arrived at our hotel where we had to wait for our room to be ready.
Once settled in we went to the tour office to check the times of our already booked trips for the next days and then it was time to explore the area. Not to far from the hotel a boardwalk is build leading to a path to a tortoise nursery. The local tortoises were almost extinct an thanks to gifts from NGO’s a breedingprogram was set up to save the species. Along the path we saw a few flamingo’s and lots of other birds and a large amount of iguanas. Upon our return we went to relax and cool down a bit in our room before setting out to explore the small town of Villamil.