TRIP TO ISABELA - Friday and Saturday 7th and 8th March
JB: Malcy, Linds and myself went on a 2 day tour to the volcanic island of Isabela, leaving Friday lunchtime and returning first thing Sunday morning (yes, I know, 3 hours before the start of the next leg but we like seat of
your pants kinda planning!). The next couple of paragraphs will provide you dear readers with a précis of our activities during this excursion, with a focus on the "infamous" horse ride up the volcano.
It took us 2 hours to travel to Isabela from Santa Cruz, in a small precariously patched together boat. Upon our arrival we were whisked off to our hotel in Puerto Villamil and then ushered to a tortoise sanctuary and a late afternoon nature trail whereupon we encountered a plethora of Galapagos wildlife: flamingos, a great blue heron, black-necked stilts, more blue footed boobies and the infamous Galapagos hawk, not to mention marine and
land iguanas. Whilst we admired the abundance of wildlife and vegetation, we felt a little unsettled as the island boasted a youthful, raw edginess. For those readers who are interested, Isabela is the largest, and one of the
youngest, of the Galapagos Islands and its seahorse shape is the result of the merging of 6 large volcanoes into a single landmass. The last of its volcanoes erupted in 2007!
We soon returned to our hotel, had supper and retired to bed as we were informed by our guide, Julio, that the following day would be busy and involved various activities one of which was the horse ride up a volcano; it is this activity and only this activity I shall describe to you, such was the hilarity at which events unfolded.
The ascent went remarkably without incident. We were all allocated a horse. There was Lindsey to my left, an accomplished horsewoman, looking immediately comfortable and I think would have been happy galloping up the
volcano rather than trotting along with us lot. Then there was Malcolm to my right, "Gandalf the Cappuccino", looking old and wise and perhaps somewhat withered, slouching with an indolence not matched by his horse!!
(his horse was a cappuccino coloured energetic young thing). Then there was Peter, the skipper from Asolare; Peter the Great - he's about 6 foot 10 and had a rather large horse to match. And then there was me, step aside
Calamity Jane, Calamity Janet's in town.
All we were going to do was ride on horseback up a volcano, round the caldera, walk to the crater of another volcano, walk back, jump on our horses and ride back down. Now what could possibly go wrong? Well where
does one start! If I can just add one ingredient at this juncture; Isabela had suffered a torrential downpour of rain the previous day, the biggest for many years so the track up the volcano was a little slippery.
But as I mentioned earlier the ascent went without incident, I felt I had bonded well with my horse telling her that she was a "good horsey" especially at one "gloopy" point when she nearly lost her footing in the sticky mud. When we arrived at the caldera the view was spectacular with an expanse of lava embraced by volcanic rock.
After skirting the caldera, We dismounted and started to walk to the mouth of another volcano. And that's when the fun began; there followed a tumultuous downpour of rain, the second torrential downpour in 24 hours. It persisted throughout our walk and yes you've guessed it, us round the world yachtsmen and women failed to bring any wet weather gear and were absolutely soaked, freezing, shivering, cold, hungry and tired by the time we returned to our patiently waiting equine friends. But it had been a wonderful walk with a multitude of vibrant colours littering the mouth of the volcano and areas around it; indeed whilst the weather had been unforgiving, it had leant a menacing coldness to the landscape, which accentuated the latent danger of the volcanoes adding to the dramatic scenery.
Okay, I'll stop digressing. In our descent we, well rather I, encountered 3 incidents of note, the first of which was quite early on and was perhaps a result of faiing to recognise her when she was standing right in front of me. The guide insisted that the one in front of me was my horse and I insisted it wasn't. Well the filthy look my horse gave me once I finally realised it was her, embarrassed me in to abject silence. I desperately embarked on making amends and was told that her name was "Flacker" - my married name is Flack so I thought having similar names might lighten her mood. But she didn't want to know - our bond had been broken. In response to my command "Vamos" (meaning lets go) she walked in to a shrub and started eating heartily. When I finally eased her away from her snack, without warning she started to canter dangerously close to the edge of the caldera and didn't seem at all interested in my yelps of "Stop!" which increased in pitches of desperation much to Peter's amusement. Well how was I to know that my horse wasn't a kamikaze type who had vowed that very morning that today would be the last day she would take another tourist up the volcano?
The second incident involved Gandalf the Cappuccino and the gloopy part of the track. I've already advised you that it was gloopy on the way up (gloopy is a JB word which means boggy and sticky). After the downpour it was a waterlogged sticky mass of mud. So Malcy's horse and my horse decided early on to take themselves high up on the hill to avoid the muddy gloop and with a clumsy canter I arrived back on the track, only to be closely followed and barged out of the way by Malcy's wayward horse. We were pushed off the path, in to the shrubs and in to the path of a rather low hanging tree. Flacker, ignoring my pleas to stop, continued onwards and not
surprisingly I was soon pressed in to a load of branches with twigs snapping, branches scrapping along my arms and legs. I had no choice but to hang on to the branches, free my feet from the stirrups (an absolute must) and slide backwards off Flacker. Whilst she gaily continued on I was left hanging off the limp branches of the tree, rescued by the guide, much to the amusement of all the others. And that's when the giggles started.
As we continued our trek to the bottom of the volcano, Malcy and I were reduced to tears of hilarity as we struggled with our wayward horses, each of us convinced that we would be unceremoniously thrown off our horse and dragged for ages through the mud, not having released our feet from the stirrups quickly enough. We thought it was just a matter of time. It was like watching a cartoon, for at times my horse's hind legs would spread wide part from slipping and sliding everywhere with her front legs crossed due to the deeply rutted parts of the track. I tried reassuring Flacker that she was doing well, patting her occasionally in encouragement but I'm sure at one point she exchanged looks of utter disdain with Cappuccino as Malcy and I would erupt in to fits of giggles.
And yes it was just a matter of time..yes the third incident I found myself and Flacker in a very tricky situation. She had ignored my pull on the reins to take the path to the right and chose a rather awkward rutted path to the left. Possibly her respect for me had vanished by this time! Anyway, she started to stumble...let me hand you over to Lindsey the horse expert:
LD: The second and, thankfully, final unseating of JB has to be described by me (Lindsey). Just imagine this awful track, about 20ft wide and so deeply rutted that the horses were up to their knees in the ruts. It takes an experienced horse person to negotiate such treacherous terrain and poor ole' JB was doing a sterling job. Now there came a point when her horse (it was actually a pony but please don't tell her) found herself with her left front
and rear hooves on top of the rut and her right front and rear hooves down in the rut (stay with me please). So consequently the pony was moments away from falling over. Now JB, being a sprightly young thing, kicked her feet out of the stirrups, swung her left leg over Flacker's neck and did the perfect 'front door dismount'. Please, my dear readers appreciate that it takes years of horsemanship to perfect this type of dismount. I was very proud of her (and at the same time laughing so hard I nearly fell of myself).
JB: Readers, you'll be pleased to know we all arrived at the bottom safely, but from the photo below you will note that I started the horse ride with a white long sleeve t-shirt on and hair neatly tied back. I shall leave it to your wicked imagination as to the state I was in after the horse ride - it wasn't pretty!!
That afternoon we went for a snorkel, another walk around a small island of beaches populated with iguanas and turtles and afterwards scurried to the nearest bar for a nice cold lager - well earned I say. (JB out - finally!)
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