Un peu plus de voyage aux Galapagos...

Apres avoir fini nos deux semaines de volontariat a l´hacienda, nous sommes partis pour 1 semaine explorer un peu plus les Galapagos. 

Nous avons commencé par Santa Cruz, la grosse ville de l´ile (apres San  Christobal ca fait vraiment ville :D), ou nous avons visité le parc national, les crateres et le centre de l´ile rapidement, sans oublier les plages. Tortuga bay est censé etre une magnifique plage pleine de tortues, mais nous n´avons pas été chanceux, il n´y avait rien a voir le jour ou on y est passés...

Apres Santa Cruz, nous sommes partis pour Isabella, la plus grande mais aussi la plus deserte des iles. C´est une enorme chaine volcanique cette ile en  fait, du coup nous en avons profité pour aller faire un tour sur le volcan de la Sierra Negra et son petit el Chico (dont les dernieres eruptions datent de 2005 et 1979 si je me souviens bien). Heureusement le ciel s´est decouvert dans la journée et nous avons pu apprecier le cratere de 10km de diametre du volcan principal.

Pour le reste des 3 jours a Isabella nous avons fait quelques balades, un peu de Kayak pour voir les oiseaux, lions de mer et pingouins locaux, et profités des cocktails du bar sur la plage :D

 

Nous avons terminé cette derniere semaine rapide aux Galapagos en retournant a San Christobal d´oú notre avion partait, et avons passé la derniere soirée avec Pépé de l´hacienda pour quelques parties de billards et finir en discotheque ambiance latino et salsa :D. Pépé a meme essayé d´apprendre a Helene quelques pas de Salsa !

---

After our two weeks volunteering in the Hacienda Tranquilla, we left San Christobal to visit more of the other islands for our last week in the Galapagos. 

We first set sail to Santa Cruz (on a speed boat, not on a proper ship :S), which is the busiest Island. After San Christobal it really felt like being in a city again :S. There we visited the national park, the big crateres and quickly the center of the island overall. We also enjoyed the local beaches. Tortuga bay is supposed to be one of the nicest one with many turtles and fish to see while snorkeling, but we must have been unlucky the day we went there :S

After Santa Cruz, we left for the Isabella island, which is the biggest but the least populated island of the archipel. It´s basically a big volcanous island, so we took the opportunity to go for a hike on the top of the main volcano: the Sierra Negra and its baby el Chico. The last eruptions date from 2005 and 1979, so it´s still quite active. We were also lucky in a way as clouds dispersed a bit during the day and we had the chance to have a look at almost the full 10km wide cratere of the Sierra Negra, which is impressively big...

The rest of our stay on Isabella was divided between walks to watch turtles, kayaking to see the local birds, sea lions and pinguins, and enjoying a few of the local cocktails from the bar on the beach :D

 

We finally had to leave the Galapagos to go to Peru, so we went back to San Christobal for our last evening where we joined Pépé from the hacienca for a couple of pool games. That was nice to see him before leaving, and we even finished the evening in the local night club, which of course had a latino and salsa athmosphere :D. Pépé even tried to teach Helene a couple of Salsa steps!