May 25, 2026
Today we intended to go to Tortuga Bay and we did, but at the last minute, we decided to also book a snorkeling tour for tomorrow (Nathan’s idea) and a highland taxi tour for this afternoon to see the Tortoise ranches (my idea).
So, after breakfast it was a WhatsApp scramble, with the obligatory ATM dash. Neither of those adventures had been planned, and we were still milking the last of the USD I had brought from home, and that was just not going to cut it.
I arranged the snorkel tour with Astrid from Discovery Galapagos, and Nathan reached out to one of the recommended taxi drivers from the guide inside our Airbnb. Once we had gone to the ATM and paid for tomorrow’s tour, we doubled back to pick up our backpacks and walked to Tortuga Bay.
Tortuga Bay is a long expanse of white sand beach. It’s free to enter, but you do need to register at the National Park Office on the way in. Once you’ve registered, it’s a ~30 minute walk down a landscaping paver path to get to the first beach, Playa Brava (Brave Beach). The Red danger flags are flying, and even though this beach is huge, there’s nobody on it because the water is just too dangerous.
We continue walking another ~15 minutes down the length of Playa Brava to Playa Mansa (Calm Beach). There were tons of people on the beach and in the water, and I always find these scenes a little intimidating.
We walked about halfway down, and put our snorkel gear on and hung our backpacks from a tree. We briefly discussed safety protocols, and we decided it felt safe enough for us both to get into the water and leave our belongings behind (we NEVER do this!)
We got into the water and it’s cool and very turbid. I’m not sure if I could even see my toes. We decided to swim over to the mangroves on skier’s right (the far side), and boy, the visibility got no better. We saw a few fish, and some baby sharks, but the water is so cloudy.
We decided to swim across the bay, together (holding hands, awe!) and try our luck with the mangroves on skier’s left. We got about half way across the bay, and Nathan looked up at our backpacks, and someone had moved them. We left them hanging on an actual tree, and not on the ground or on one of the provided coat trees. We took our snorkel gear off to check it out, and think that a park ranger came along and moved our stuff off the living (protected) tree and onto the ground. Other than that, the bags were unmolested.
We got back in the water, duly admonished, and continued over to the mangroves on the left side of the bay.
Here, we hit the mother lode. It’s still fairly turbid, but we can see better near the mangroves, and we saw baby black tipped reef sharks, a sting ray of some kind, a huge turtle, blue footed boobies, and a bunch of small schooling fish who were clearly afraid of the baby sharks. There were also very clearly warm sections where volcanic action must be warming the water, and cool sections from the Pacific.
We snorkeled for about an hour, before we decided we’d had as much fun as possible, and decided to get dried off and walk back home. Marco and his taxi will be picking us up at 1 pm.
We got home at about 12:30, and we both quickly showered, and hung our snorkel gear to dry. We also briefly charged phones and ate our sandwiches.
At precisely 1 pm, Marco arrived, and we hopped in his cab. He drove us for about an hour to Los Gemelos. We drove through ranchland and now we are up in the highlands. Marco has the windows rolled down and the air is nice and cool. We drove past giant tortoises minding their own business out in the wild, some in the same fields as cattle.
We got to Los Gemelos and Marco tells us he doesn’t know English and asks if we know Spanish. Nathan replied “Solo un Poco”, and Marco corrects his Spanish. Marco pulls out a white board and a marker and in slow Spanish, explains where we are, and what we are seeing, how deep the craters are and their diameter.
The walk takes about 15 minutes to see both craters, including picture stops, and when the loop is done, we get back in the truck and Marco takes us to Rancho El Chato.
Once we arrive at the ranch, Marco gets out of the truck and walks us into the welcome center. He deposits us at the front desk, and we pay our entrance fees ($10 each). We await a guide and are told we can look at the tortoise shells in the center, or get a coffee (for a tip!) or look at the souvenir shop.
I assumed we were waiting for enough people for a small group tour, but our minder waved us over when we were done with our coffee, took us out to the ‘boot room’, outfitted us with muck boots, and sent us on our way with Andrea, our guide for today.
Andrea walked us through the ranch and past several tortoises. She answered questions and explained more about the tortoises, the rings on their shell, their size, etc. Although this is a ‘ranch’ the tortoises are free to roam in the wild, cross the road, walk wherever they please, throughout the island.
I could have continued walking around the ranch looking at tortoises, but then she brought us to the lava tunnels. I did not realize this was included in this adventure, but I did know that lava tunnels were in the area.
Andrea walked us through three lava tunnels, one with a resting barn owl (!), and explained how the tunnels were formed (flowing lava). When we were done with the final lava tunnels, we returned the muck boots, got our shoes back, and got into Marco’s taxi for the ride home.
After Marco deposited us back at Casa Paloverde, we spent the remainder of the afternoon on our lanai, with mosquito coils burning and the portable fan blowing.