Isabela Island Visitor Sites Part I - Sites from Puerto Villamil

Basic Geography and Overview of Isabela Island

Map of Isabela from JunglePhotos.com
Map reproduced with permission from Instituto Geografico Militar del Ecuador

Landscape/Moonscape on Isabela Hiking Up Volcan Sierra Negra
Photograph from CreativeCommons by Michael R. Perry

Isla Isabela, located in the western Galapagos Islands, is one of the newest geological land masses in the archipelago. If you have experienced the eastern islands, heavily eroded over the millennia by wind and waves, you may find the baked lava terrain surrounding the volcanoes on Isabela in stark contrast. It is rugged and challenging. It displays different colors; different minerals catch the light; it is mountainous and stark; it is intriguing at every turn.

Isabela is also unique because it grew not from one volcanic eruption, but by the integration of six separate underwater volcanoes. It is the largest land mass in the island system, accounting for 60% of the total land area. Moreover, due to its size and the fact that it arose from the sea as a result of multiple different natural occurrences and eruptions, its landscape is varied and it has many individually interesting tour sites and attractions.

This is the first of three posts I will write about Isabela Island. Here, I focus on the remarkable visitor sites accessible from the main town of Puerto Villamil. Get ready - you are about to experience everything from blue footed boobies to steps carved into a volcanic hillside, from flamingos to a bustling town. Indeed, each visitor to Isabela will experience this enchanted ground from a difference perspective, and, like the Galapagos Islands themselves, Isabela has something to offer everyone.