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We met Andreas at 8am after grabbing some chocolate bread and biscuits for breakfast. He took the four of us around in his pick up truck, firstly stopping at a lagoon where lots of flamingos were feeding on shrimps. It was a completely different climate to where Nathan and I saw flamingos before (on the salt flats in Bolivia). The second stop was another tortoise breeding centre, this was more exciting that the one we had been to in Santa Cruz as it was feeding time so the turtles were a lot more active. The smaller ones were especially funny to watch, scrambling over each other to get the leaves and taking the branches from each other. They had tiny baby turtles which were about 1 year old, up to the big male adults. Next was a seaside area with a lava cave which we went inside, there were different types of crabs and large marine iguanas chilling on the beach. We all sat in the back of the truck for the rest of the rides between sites, stopping to walk through mangroves, past apple trees (which are poisonous) and large cactuses which led us to a really peaceful area where you could just hear birds and running water. Nathan had fun photographing tiny crabs as they came out their holes. Although Andreas told us the water here was fresh and safe to drink we decided not to. The next stop was el Muro de las Lagrinas a large wall made of volcanic rock which the prisoners were made to build in the 1800's -the slogan was 'the strong ones cry, the weak ones die'. Finally we climbed up a small-ish hill for a panoramic view of the surrounding area, much of which was miles of vegetation. You could just about see Volcano Sierra Negra, we were glad we didn't decide to do the day trip there as it was cloudy by this point and we probably wouldn't have seen much. We all agreed that it had been a good morning, even though it's much of the same wildlife it was different terrain and made a nice change to spend some time just on land rather than on a boat. Back in the town we had a rest before snorkelling this afternoon.
We went to Tortuga island for our afternoon snorkelling with 3 other people (2 Chileans and a Dutch who was diving). The island (a large rock) had vertical edges and wasn't an island you could disembark on, rough waves were banging us around as we attempted to snorkel alongside the cliffs. I found this a bit too daunting and decided to stop early and relax (!) on the boat instead. The others were much braver than me and snorkelled for the full hour. On the journey back Eddy and I sat up top and were allowed to steer the boat for a bit which made up for my lack of snorkelling! He told us it was like driving a car but didn't warn us you only needed to steer a tiny bit to the left or right to turn, this meant I steered completely off track and then overcorrected it. I'm not sure he trusted us as he took back control fairly quickly. Eddy got stuck in her wetsuit which was hilarious, we were rocking side to side me trying to pull the wetsuit off her legs without flying backwards!
Nathan: The waves made it difficult conditions and the water was murky. We saw mainly fish that we had seen before however the highlight of the afternoon was seeing 2 sea lions playing with each other and becoming very intrigued by us. They are far more graceful in the water than out! The guy diving didn't see much more other than a sting ray so Browny was glad she didn't pay to dive (she has a license but it's quite expensive each time you go). The journey back was calmer than the way here although it did make me feel slightly ill, we later realised that Kat and Eddy had been driving the boat as they sat up top, this may explain the seasickness! When we arrived back at Puerto Villamil it was raining and extremely dark and misty which created an eerie atmosphere and we felt like it was much later than 6.30pm. We saw a couple of penguins on the rocks as we came in although not as many or as close as we had been hoping. A warm shower was much needed! We went to a restaurant that Andreas had recommended and had the set menu for $5 which was one of our best dinners so far. Another 5am start tomorrow calls for an early night!
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