We got up early, earlier than we though, we left the hotel at 8am but in fact it was 7am, we did not know that there is an hour difference between the Galapagos Islands and Guayaquil. We went to visit the Darwin centre, 15 min walk from the village (free entrance), we saw for the first time the famous giant tortoises of the Galapagos...they are really huge! We had a walk around the centre and saw tortoises of all ages as this is a place where they breed tortoises to release them in the wild. Those tortoises look like the European ones when they are 3 years old but afterwards they become much bigger. We then went to a beach called Tortuga Bay which is on the other side of the village. To get to the beach you have to follow a 2km walking track, which takes you though giant cactuses and low bushes. The track is made of volcanic stone and seems to be appreciated by the small lava lizards as we saw many of them. After a very nice walk (50min taking a lot of pictures!) we arrived at Tortuga Bay a beautiful, white sand beach where we saw lots of sea iguanas, crabs, birds but no tortoises! The sea iguanas are very funny when they are walking on the beach and the crabs dig holes in the sand where they hide when you come to close. After walking along this beautiful beach spotting all those animals we reached another small beach well enclosed, so there is no waves and it is safe to go swimming, we did not as the water was not that hot. The beach was amazing, you feel like you are at the end of the world and that the world belongs to you. We returned on time to Puerto Ayora to catch the daily speed boat to Isabella at 2pm. Our bags where checked again as you are not allowed to carry things that could "contaminate" Isabella. To be honest they don't really check propely your bag, they just open it and have a quick look. The process to board the boat was very confusing, a guy came to ask us if we had tickets (very expensive tickets, the two hours ride costs $30), then he took our tickets and walked away trying to get more people to travel in his boat. After a while he took our backs and only a good 10 min later he came to us to let us know that we finally could board the boat, ...trying to not fall in the water as it was not that easy to enter this boat. The trip to Isabella was around 2h long and was horrible! The 2 big engines at full speed are very noisy and the boat keeps bumping on the waves badly. When we arrived at Puerto Villami harbour a group of people was waiting for the boat and they all offered us hotels, tours, a "free ride" to the village. The harbour is not in the village and it really seemed that the village could be far away but as we don't like going with people that offer us things we decided to walk and the village was in fact only 5min away. Puerto Villami is so much nicer than Puerto Ayora, the atmosphere is very quiet and relaxed. Puerto Ayora is a small place but compare to Puerto Villami it is a busy town. In Puerto Villami the streets are very wide and in dirt. The houses are not close to each other, the lamp posts are in wood and people are very friendly, they will always say "Hola" when they pass you in the street. After booking our hotel (annexe San Vincente - cheaper version $10pppn) and a tour to the Volcano Sierra Negra ($25, normal price $33) we walked around the village and saw flamingos. In the evening we had a meal in a touristic restaurant on the main street, but the food was terrible, very disapointing.
