April 26th 2009 - Walking over lava

I woke up at half 6 this morning, just in time to see Jenson Button win another Grand Prix. We took a bus to the highlands for a 5 hour hike (about 16k of walking) which was incredible. There was an enormous crater (significantly larger than the one in Quilotoa) and it was very impressive. As we headed to the Fernandina viewpoint we got to walk over solidified lava – blip for today – which was very cool. We felt the warm air from a hole leading deep into the volcano, smelt the sulphur on the rocks and not only enjoyed the powerful landscape of hardened lava flows but we also got to see the beauty of the glistening rocks up close.

On the way back to the hostel we had a quick stop off for some flamingo photos which was cool but we hardly had time to stop at the hostel before we climbed aboard the ‘Maite Del Mer’ which took us at a phenomenal little island. We saw loads of penguins, iguanas, sea lions, birds and even sharks and a sea turtle - which bossed the sharks, just swimming through them. It was amazing and the island had which a cool structure with all its little bobbly volcanic bits.

We snorkelled a couple of times afterwards though the water was murkier so it wasn’t as good as yesterday – although as Louise St was teaching me how to go to the bottom a manta ray swam past which was pretty cool. After a bit of time relaxing at the hostel we had our briefing and then had tea before a few of us headed to a bar. It was cool and the end of another great day was upon us.