Isabela Island
Isabela is the largest island in the Galapagos and it is also inhabited. Its main town is Puerto Villamil which has a population of about 3,000. There is a single unpaved main road and most of the shops and restaurants are either on it or very close. We stayed at Iguana Crossing and had several outings and one amazing day trip (Los Tuneles) that I put on a separate web page.
The Flight to Isabela - We flew on a small 9-passenger airplane between Santa Cruz (Baltra airport) and Isabela.
Around Puerto Villamil - Because it is such a small town, I didn't take any pictures of street scenes. In its place are shots of the beaches, the walkways around our hotel and the wildlife that we saw.
Tortoise Breeding Center - The Tortoise Breeding Center is an interesting place to visit but after you've seen your first fifty tortoises, the scenery gets a little repetitive. It's located about a kilometre north of the hotel (Iguana Crossing). We took a taxi there and walked back. I'm really glad that we didn't walk there because we wouldn't have had much energy left for observing.
Tortuga Bay Tour - After visiting Los Tuneles we didn't think that a tour of Tortuga Bay (right off Puerto Villamil) was going to be very much, but we were impressed. There are a lot of different birds and animals and the tour operator did a good job of getting us close and telling us what we were seeing.
