Island Tour
If walking out the front door yesterday into a blast furnace taught us anything, it is the value of an early morning start. Today, we’re cleaned up and ready to go by 8:30 – a pretty impressive feat given the cast of characters. Our plan is to hire a couple of taxis for the day and have them take us around a few of the sights on the island.
First on the list is the El Chato Tortoise Reserve. Here, for $3 a person, you can roam the grounds looking for tortoises that are free to come and go as they please. There are no enclosures like at the Research Center, so while you still need to keep a bit of distance, it is possible to get far more up close and personal.
Back at the ticket office, they have a couple of shells on display to give you a sense of just how big they are.
From the tortoise reserve, we head off to a spot called Los Gemelos. This is a pair of sinkholes that formed when the roofs of empty magma chambers collapsed. The boys entertain themselves by tossing rocks over the edge and counting until they hear them crash through the leaves below. Twenty years ago, I might have remembered enough physics to teach them how to figure out the depth, but now I defer to Google to tell me the answer – 2,300 feet.
After returning to town, we get dropped off at the municipal market to pick up some fruit (sadly not the bananas I wanted Joey and Sam to carry home on their shoulders) and the wallet-friendly almuerzos (a set lunch, generally consisting of soup, rice, some meat, and a drink, all for about $4). The tap water here isn’t drinkable, so the tub of juice sitting on the counter gives Travelin’ Gran the heebies, but she earns a shout out for trying the soup with what looks like testicles.
Just outside of town there is a second beach that our guide books recommend, and since it is still fairly early in the day, we decide to give it a go. It is a shorter walk than Tortuga Bay, but requires a short ride in a water taxi to get to the trail head. Traveling’ Gran has decided to take a pass on this adventure, so it comes as no surprise that our testosterone-heavy group votes down Mom’s preference for relaxing on the sand in favor of jumping off the cliffs into a nearby swimming hole.
Las Grietas (which translates literally to “the cracks”) is a long ribbon of crystal clear water between a deep fissure in the volcanic rock. It is a popular destination for the locals, as in addition to swimming and snorkeling, the 30 feet of rock wall on either side provide plenty of opportunity for climbing and cliff jumping. About halfway down, there is also an underwater tunnel, connecting one pool to an even more tranquil one on the other side. In other words, a perfect spot for a group of teenage (and almost teenage) boys to spend an afternoon.
By the time we return home, there is not a lot of support for doing more walking to find a restaurant for dinner, so the boys settle in for a lively game of Name That Soup. That there are only two flavors available on the island limits the challenge a tiny bit, but between the soup and a cabinet full of DVDs, they are in vacation nirvana.