AM: Free Morning.

PM: You will transfer by speed boat to Isla Isabela, transfer to your hotel with a bit of time to relax on the beach or wander around this charming village before dinner.  Overnight Isabela.

AM:  After breakfast, you'll be transported up to Sierra Negra to begin your Volcano Trek around the edge of the world's second largest caldera of an active volcano.  You will also have the option to trek over to Volcan Chico, which most agree offers magnificent views in an other-wordly moonscape.  Feel the heat of lava beneath your feet or carefully pass your hand over a fumerole to feel the heat of the steam from activity below the earth.  What an experience to trek an active volcano!

PM: The Isabela Breeding Center is a fascinating place where you can see many tortoises of all sizes and shapes as well as learn more about their life spans.  Afterwards, walk 1 kilometer back into town on a wooden walkway above Isabela wetlands with shorebirds and marine iguanas.

Dinner and Overnight in Isabela.

Los Tuneles is, simply put, one of the most magical spots in the whole of the Galapagos. It is a labyrinth of submerged lava tunnels inside the breakers, so the water is not just completely calm, but swimming- pool clear. There are large schools of fish, Sea Turtles, White-Tipped Reef Sharks, Lobster, Sea Lions, Eagle Rays, Marine Iguanas and Galapagos Penguins. Los Tuneles also has a 'turtle highway', a route turtles take between the mangrove and the sea that means you often literally watch them passing each other in two lanes, as though on a highway.  Blue Footed Boobies nest in Los Tuneles. The backdrop is an incredible land-before-time vista with two active volcanoes looming above, Volcan Sierra (last erupted in 2005) and Cerro Azul (last erupted in May 2008).

We will then move along the coast to find seahorses in water a mere foot deep.  Sea turtles here are often 5+ feet.  Lunch will be aboard in a tranquil, mangrove lined bay.  Los Tuneles is an amazing place you will never forget.

Time and conditions permitting, we next venture north to another spectacular spot called El Finado.  This is a bay chocked full of man-sized turtles.  It is truly a visual that helps it sink in that the Galapagos has one of the most prolific populations of sea turtles on the planet! Also, we can usually find the giant Pacific Seahorse wrapped around mangrove roots in water that is only a foot or two deep...often viewed with a turtle sleeping below.  

Dinner and Overnight in Isabela.

Experience has taught us that the sole regret people have when they depart Isabela is that the tour they were on left them no time to explore for themselves. Isabela inspires that and, while that is challenging to impossible on other islands, on Isabela it feels like a mandate.  You can explore the beautiful 3 kilometer long beach inside the National Park where you will probably only have marine iguanas for company.  There are spots where you can snorkel from the shore with giant turtles, marine iguanas, sea lions and more.  Bike down the shore to experience the beach on one side and wetlands full of endemic and transient shore birds on the other side.  Try your hand at surfing, a popular Isabela pastime.  Head over to Concha de Perla for some snorkeling.  There is so much to do in Isabela that your only problem will be not having enough time to do it all.

Dinner and Overnight in Isabela.