Volcanologists At Work

Found It!!!

We had been in the Galapagos for about 6 days when we completed the servicing of our seven boat-reachable stations. We still had eight more seismic stations to go, and two weather stations to instal - so our work was far from over. However, these were only reachable by land as they were located further into the central regions of Isabela Island. We departed our sailing boat - the Pirata (which had been our home for the past 4 days) and docked at the town of Puerto Villamil, located on the south-eastern corner of the island and the main inhabitated spot in this part of the Galapagos.

Puerto Villamil is an interesting place. Like in Puerto Ayora, the beachfront is lined with expensive hotels and some nice restaurants. From first appearances - its little more than one street. You have to remember that most tourists who come to the Galapagos often take boat cruises around the islands, and rarely stop off for too long in the towns that appear scattered across these various land masses. If you do spend some more time here though, you soon relise that what the average tourist observes is not quite the whole story. Walk a little further inland and the wealthy look of the place rapidly declines. Local inhabitants of the islands live in conditions more similar to what you would expect from mainland Ecuador and in some cases - much worse. Many people here work in agriculture, fishing or as farmers up in the highland regions. Puerto Villamil though, certainly had a more rustic look than its neighbouring town on the island of Santa Cruz, and actually - I quite liked the place. The one beach-front street reminded more of an island in Thailand. It was very relaxed, slow paced and quiet. There were a couple of bars where locals and tourists alike would stop off for an evening drink - whilst sitting in a hammock or playing the very popular game of Ecuadorian volleyball. The rest of the town was made up of restaurants, hotels and a few convenience stores. We spent five nights in Puerto Villamil and stayed in two hotels during that time. We even got to make friends with some of the locals.

Most of the stations we had to service were located around the Sierra Negra Volcano. Sierra Negra (1124 m) is a large shield volcano, located at the south-eastern end of Isabela. The volcano coalesces with the volcanoes Cerro Azul to the west and Alcedo to the north. Sierra Negra forms one of the most active volcanic centres in the Galapagos, last erupting in 2005. It is created, like other volcanoes here, by mantle plume processes which forms the hotspot beneath this region. Previously, we had had to do very little physical work to reach our stations. The boat would drop us off usually ten minutes or so away from where we had to work. Now though - it would be a whole different story. For the next four days we would be getting up around 5.30am and often walking for 12 hours a day. The station servicing was the easy part - it was getting to the station that would physically ruin us all. The day would usually always start with a taxi to the Sierra Negra National Park. That took about 40 minutes to get to from Puerto Villamil. Then we would walk a trailed path up to the rim of the caldera which would usually take about an hour and a half. From this point we often took different routes to reach the various stations. They were always off path (again we had special permission to trek where the tourists couldn't) and usually we were led over old rocky lava flows, up and down ash layered mounds and through vegetation that would scratch your arms, legs and well, all parts of your body - to mere pieces. Some of the plants, which are home to some odd apple looking fruit are seriously poisonous and if you get any of the juice on your skin - it burns it a bright red and causes severe pain. On one of the days, Cynthia was unfortunate when a small drop landed on her cheek. Ouch. Apparently, the giant land tortoise is the only animal with the stomach to digest these deadly fruits. The point of all this - is that we walked over some seriously tough terrain to get our work complete. Often, the intense heat would certain not help matters as all the water in our bodies soaked away. On one our toughest days, I think I drank over 5 litres of water.

Once we were at the station, it was usually fine. The work went smoothly and there was very rarely a problem. Some of the locations were not to difficult to reach either. For example; one of the stations was situated on a local farm; another in the tortoise sanctuary - where we all got to spend more time looking at these incredible animals. One of the stations was also located deep in an arid forest - and myself and Cynthia, along with a guide and two local kids, spent an hour and a half on horses, to reach our destination. I don't often have much luck with horses - I always seen to get the disobedient one, so it was very little suprise that as soon as I got on the animal - it violently thrashed around to get me off. I never thought I would die in a horsing accident - but I was pretty much sure at that moment, that my time was up!!! It wasn't me the horse didn't like we later found out - but a piece of rope our guide had put in its mouth. I survived the ordeal. The trip in the forest took us through the same scratchy plants that cover this island - and as the horse was leading the way and didn't seem to even notice the vegetation - I naturally came out of that forest looking like I had been the victim in some sort of slasher movie. Reaching these stations though - were the easy adventures. On two days - it was a whole different story. I have named these days - 1. "The Caldera Run" and 2. "The helicopter rescue". They would test everyones limits - both physically and mentally - and their story has to be told...................