Parroquia Tomás de Berlanga (Santo Tomás), Ecuador - Polarsteps

Where we've seen many sea turtles and marine iguanas the last few days, the giant tortoises and land iguanas were nowhere to be seen in the wild. Until today! And boy were they big! 🐢 It's probably the only wild animal that doesn't run away, so enough time to watch! In the morning we landed at Urbina bay, at the foot of a volcano. This area is famous for its abundance of giant reptiles. On our hike, we saw many enormous tortoises and land iguanas, many too lazy to move when we walked past them. These great dinosauric creatures took our breath away! 💡Fun fact: until they are 30 years old, you can tell the age of giant tortoises by the darker bands on their shields. Can you figure out how old the ones in the photos are? In the afternoon, we snorkeled and hiked in Tagus Cove. This ancient shelter is riddled with the names and dates of ships which have visited the site, with dates deep in the 1800s (pirates!!🏴‍☠️). Nowadays this practice is forbidden, thank goodness. In the water, there were many penguins, some of which turbood right past us. What an amazing experience to swim with the penguins (Frank vs. Penguin: penguin wins 📸). And indeed, they do fly, just under water instead of in the air. During the hike, we spotted a very tame Galapagos hawk and got beautiful views of the volcanic landscapes of Isabella and the Darwin lake (Darwin spent some hours on land here!). Right before dinner, we heard weird noises from our bedroom. After first looking at Liselot's tummy🤨, we headed to the upper deck. From here we spotted three sea lions using our boat as a resting platform. They stayed well into the night, singing us to sleep with their beautiful songs. (For any Ylvis fans: it's the language of loveeee 💕)

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Ecuador