All About Puerto Villamil on Isabela, Galapagos Islands

Choosing which of the Galapagos Islands to visit isn’t easy, as I’ve mentioned plenty of times here before. Besides Santa Cruz, which we flew into from Quito, we decided to visit one more island — Isabela. It’s famous for being the largest island, shaped like a seahorse, and with lots of wildlife to see. Puerto Villamil, on Isabela island, is the largest city and where most tourists stay.

But after spending a few days in Puerto Ayora on Santa Cruz, Puerto Villamil was a lot different from what I expected. So here’s what you need to know if you’re planning to visit Puerto Villamil on Isla Isabela.

About Puerto Villamil

Over in Puerto Ayora, there are 12,000 inhabitants. Isabela, on the other hand, only has 2,200 inhabitants on the entire island, though most of them do live in Puerto Villamil.

If you arrive at the boat dock, Muelle de Isabel, you will likely need to find a ride into town, as it’s a bit of a walk from everything else. Your hotel may arrange a bus for you. Otherwise, you can flag down one of the white trucks that operate as taxis. There are plenty of them waiting in the parking lot.

You can tell right away, upon arrival, how much more rural Puerto Villamil feels compared to Puerto Ayora. Rather than nearly a mile of shops and restaurants for tourists along a fairly-busy main road, there are fewer options with more space between them. Most of the roads in the town center are made of sand. There are hardly any trees or clouds to help you hide from the sun, especially this close to the Equator. And the temperature was about 10 degrees F (5-6 C) hotter than it was in Puerto Ayora.

Here, you will also have a hard time getting cell signal — with my iPhone 8, which usually has LTE, I usually had 3G service or none at all. Wi-Fi was not reliable even in the places that claimed to have it. I believe our guide for our snorkeling activity told us that the island only got electricity about 30 years ago.

So just be aware that Puerto Villamil can feel quite isolated and rugged, especially compared to Puerto Ayora. But remember: It’s still not safe to drink the water!

Things To Do

Okay, so Puerto Villamil is isolated and rugged… but that makes it a great place to see wildlife! In fact, that’s one of the main reasons I decided to come to this island. There are lots of places to look for animals as well as other things you can do.

The best thing we did was a snorkeling excursion! It technically wasn’t in Puerto Villamil — it’s about a 45-minute boat ride along the coast — but it departs from Puerto Villamil so I’m counting it. You can snorkel with sea turtles at an area called Los Tuneles, which is a grouping of lava tunnels.

Our pickup, transport, wetsuits, and snorkels were included, along with a homemade Ecuadorian lunch on the boat. The group was small, and our guide, Carlos, was fantastic. He even brought an underwater camera to take pictures of us with the sea turtles and other creatures we saw. I highly recommend the trip we did! You can book it here.

Just like in Puerto Ayora, Puerto Villamil has its own tortoise reserve — the Arnaldo Tupiza Giant Tortoise Breeding Center. From the town center, it’s not far at all. You’ll walk along a nice trail/boardwalk that actually provides a little bit of shade, and the landscape is diverse and interesting to look at.

Just like at the Charles Darwin Center in Puerto Ayora, you’ll have to pay a guide to take you around the area — $10 per person. And again, I don’t feel a guide is necessary, but I do understand the reasoning, as 97% of the islands are designated as Galapagos National Park, so they want to ensure it’s protected. If you’ve already seen the tortoises in Puerto Ayora, you may want to skip this. But we did get to see baby turtles that had just hatched that morning! So that was a lucky surprise for us.

On our last afternoon, we rented electric bikes from a restaurant in town. (Yes, that sounds strange. But you’ll understand when you get there.) It costs $5 per person for 4 hours.

Things to See

The woman who rented the bikes to us recommended that we ride to El Mirador del Mango, a viewpoint about 6 miles (9 km) away from town. The ride was beautiful though it felt slightly dangerous at times with blind curves and sharing the road with cargo trucks. On a clearer day, we may have been able to see more in the distance from the viewpoint.

With some more planning before we had to catch our ferry back to Santa Cruz, maybe we could have biked to the Muro de las Lágrimas (Wall of Tears). Though we were not able to check it out during our trip, it could be worth a visit. The Wall of Tears is located about 3 miles (5km) west of Puerto Villamil. Back in the mid-20th century, the Galapagos Islands were used as a prison, and Isabela had the largest penal colony. And these prisoners were the ones who built the 65 ft tall (25 m) wall by hand. These days, locals say the wall makes eerie cries and has negative energy.

If you want to see more wildlife, there are a variety of places on and just off the island that you can find flamingoes, blue-footed boobies, and even penguins. We saw a few lone flamingos in Puerto Villamil, many boobies on Union Rock on our way to Los Tuneles, and penguins during a sunset water taxi ride around Las Tintoreras.

And one last thing you can’t miss in Puerto Villamil is the Iglesia Católica Cristo Salvador, or the town’s church. I feel like I’ve probably visited at least 50 churches around the world, and this one was incredibly unique. Have you ever seen murals of Jesus surrounded by tropical plants and animals? Take a quick peek inside and you’ll be able to say that you have.

Where To Eat in Puerto Villamil

Some nights we had a really hard time deciding where to eat. There were a few reasons for this — first, we depend on our phones a lot to help us choose a place. We love reading reviews on places and checking out the menu in advance to see what the food is like and the prices. And we just weren’t able to do that in Puerto Villamil since we didn’t have cell service.

Second, a lot of the places listed online or on Apple or Google Maps simply didn’t exist anymore or were seasonally closed. Several times during our few days there, if we had a rare moment of Wi-Fi, we would choose a place with great reviews for dinner. And we would walk there… and it would be gone. Or closed down. So that was a bit of a struggle.

But we did eat at a few places that stood out (sometimes more than once):

Iguana Point Bar: There’s probably no better view of the ocean than the Iguana Point Bar. Not only can you look onto the beach, but there’s a marine iguana nesting zone just feet away from the restaurant. If you look closely, you’ll likely see little puffs of sand flying into the air as the iguanas dig, burrowing underground.

Just like in Puerto Ayora, prices in Puerto Villamil are a little more expensive than on the Ecuadorian mainland. But the prices at Iguana Point Bar were reasonable, and the food was really tasty. One day I had ceviche (my weakness), and another day we came for breakfast to have tigrillos. It’s a local, family-owned little restaurant — the family’s teenage daughter will probably be your waitress. Just be sure you bring cash as credit cards aren’t accepted here. (Probably a good rule of thumb for everywhere in the Galapagos Islands, especially in Puerto Villamil.)

El Cafetal Galapagos: We ate here for dinner one night, and it was really unique compared to most of the other places we ate in Puerto Villamil. It was a charming restaurant with “gourmet” Ecuadorian fare and American cafe vibes — including a small library for customers to browse. But can get busy at dinner time, so be sure to make a reservation if you’re planning to have dinner here during the busy season. If you’re having a hard time finding it, it’s right next to the Cristo Salvador church.

 

If you read my Puerto Ayora blog, you may notice this post is missing a “Medical Attention” section, which is for the best. 🙂

But I hope now you feel prepared to venture into the previously-unknown Puerto Villamil. Let me know if you have any questions and I’ll respond as soon as I can.

–Cathy

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Originally Published on May 12, 2022.