It was so early that not even the agency was opened, we waited and after a while people started to gather and we were all shipped to a boat. There were three older women which was weird since there was some climbing down a huge 70-100 meters deep vulcanic hole. 

Anyway, off we went. Bernd and I went on the second floor but as the weather was bad after the two and a half hours the boat ride took, we were freezing and wet. The others that were on the lower deck inside the cabin told us they were all sea sick and had puked the whole way (haha!).

One of the older woman was an Israeli grandma who had felt and hurt her foot, she was very demanding for attention and translation since everyone else was from Ecuador and spoke Spanish. After a half an hour drive we arrived to the place where we would go down the vulcanic hole. The older woman stayed and watched us from far away and the others were shipped off to the hole. As it had been raining it was very slippery, a couple of teenagers couldn’t even get down a hill with the rope (they were from tropical Guayaquil and just know plain areas), one was so scared that he screamed to the guide for help, he was like 16, it was hilarious. 

The hole was in fact very deep and they had no protection or security but an old helmet. This excursion took like 2-3 hours and only about five people went down, only Bernd and another guy reached the bottom though, it was very scary and seriously dangerous.

After lunch we went to another small island where we saw penguins, sea wolves, boobies (Mark, you would’ve loved them) and then got off in Tintoreras Island which is covered with black lava rocks full of marine iguanas who are all cuddled up trying to mantain warm. There is a very narrow place where you can see sharks and we also saw a huge 2 meters stingray. 

As it still was raining and not too warm only Bernd, another guy and I went snorkeling (when would we have the next opportunity to do so). We saw two small stingrays and a seawolf was playing with us for some minutes. Underwater it went in circles and then from time to time it would stick its face out of the water and look at us couriously, so awesome.

The time was over really fast and we had to return to the speed boat which would bring us back to Puerto Ayora where we were staying. Time past by fast as we slept almost all the way.