November 26, 2007

Plaza South and Punta Carrión

We woke up early and grabbed breakfast in the hotel restaurant. We then met the bus outside the hotel and drove 45min to the Itabaca Channel between Baltra Island and Santa Cruz Island. When we arrived, we put on life jackets and hopped into a dingy, which took us to the Santa Fe II Yacht. During our trip, a group of magnificent frigatebirds kept us company along side the boat.


















After a 1.5hrs trip we arrived at the Plaza Islands. We again boarded the dingy and docked at Plaza South, where we were met by a colony of sea lions.


















We walk for 1.5hrs around the island and saw both land and marine iguanas, lava lizards, red-billed tropic birds, magnificent frigatebrids, swallow-tailed gull, lava heron, cactus finches, some pacific green turtles mating and the sally lightfoot crab. It was quite the enchanting walk.


















We went back to the boat and had a lunch of rice, califlower and potato salad, cabbage salad and G had bacalao (catfish) as we sailed to Punta Carrión. As we arrived at Punta Carrión we cahnged into our bathing suits and went for a swim. G went snorkeling and saw some white-tip reef sharks, a school of blue and silver fish and another school of cool black fish with yellow and blue accents.

After we made it back to the dock, we drove back to the hotel making a quick stop at "Los Gemelos", which are two sink holes in the highlands. We then had dinner in the outside café of the hotel.