ECUADOR, GALAPAGOS ISLANDS: ISABELA ISLAND - TAGUS COVE HIKE

March 24, 2022, Morning and Lunch

During the night our catamaran left Fernandina Island and returned to Isabela Island, dropping anchor just off Tagus Cove on the northwestern coast of the island.

We got up early for a 6:00 AM breakfast, and by 7:00 we were in pangas on our way to a dry landing at Tagus Cove.

Tagus Cove was visited by Charles Darwin in 1835 and has always been a hideout for pirates, whalers, and other sea voyagers. The cove gets its name from a British ship, the Tagus, that anchored there in 1814 looking for some of the giant tortoises to replenish their food supply.

Starting in the early 19th century, visitors to this site began carving their name and the year into the cliff. (It just takes one to start a trend.) 

The oldest is this one: 1836.

The practice was outlawed when the Galapagos National Park was established in 1959-1960, although I see "Feb 1974 Oceana" on the right. Clearly this was before tourists had to be accompanied by a naturalist!

The hike begins with 120 stairs and continues uphill after that. Along the way I spotted several kinds of mushrooms growing in the brush next to the trail. We have a son who studies mushrooms, and he has taught us to turn the mushroom over to take a look at the gills, but we were not supposed to touch the plants and did not dare disturb anything.

I texted my photos to our son right away and got a quick response:

We also spotted this bizarre cactus with one broad, flat leaf.

After about an hour, we reached a highpoint. 

We had a breathtaking (literally, because of the heat and altitude gain) view of Lake Darwin, a caldera lake with twice the salinity of the ocean.

Another "We were really there!" moment.

Fernanda explained the geologic processes that shaped this island.

Heading back to the shore:

One of the buccaneers gazing out to sea:

Caught in Bob's viewfinder--a Galapagos hawk, similar in size to the red-tail hawk and endemic to the Galapagos Islands.

More autographs on another cliff face:

We learned later in the day that our panga captain, Angel (we could never decide if that was actually his name), really WAS a pirate. More on that in the next post.

We went back to the catamaran to change into swimming gear and grab our snorkel bags, then went back to the cove. The Alya has four kayaks and two paddle boards, and Bob and I decided to kayak first. (It was fun, but the water was pretty choppy and we are not as young as we used to be.) We did enjoy splashing the others in our group who were kayaking, but when we started splashing Fernanda and Angel, things got out of control and we ended up flipping over and getting dunked. It was all in good time.

After our 30-minute allotment, we crawled into the panga, put on our flippers and snorkel masks, and slipped over the side into the water. It was a great place for snorkeling with lots of fish to see, but motion sickness caught up to me again and I was glad to get  back to the boat to lie down for a bit.

Before lunch the head chef gave a demonstration on how to make ceviche. The man standing behind him is the events coordinator for the ship (like Julie on The Love Boat).

When he was done, we sat down to a huge portion of ceviche set in front of each one of us. We thought it was the entire meal, but it was followed by a main course of chicken in mushroom sauce and a salad . . . 

. . . followed by flan for dessert.

I think it was all pretty good, but still feeling queasy from the morning, I didn't eat much of it, and I passed on the snorkeling trip that followed immediately after.

Bob went, and when he came back he said the snorkeling wasn't great. The water was very murky, and from the ship I could see great swaths of white something on the ocean surface. The guide said it was just ubbles whipped up by the wind, but Bob said it tasted soapy and wondered if it was from the shampoo we smear inside our masks to prevent them from fogging up.