It didn't take us long to find a place to stay on Isabela. We had maybe three choices. So Mama Fanny's hostel it was. Bring on the critters, geckos and cockroaches. I can do geckos. But cockroaches? Yeah no. Refer here if you'd like to see what I mean.
There's really not much happening on this island. The main street is a dirt road and there were maybe four places to eat. We didn't see a ton of locals around, so we wanted to go explore and find them...there had to be a story somewhere. Every tourist was riding a bike and the locals had motorcycles.
Obviously, we wanted a motorcycle too. And when one of us has an idea, we don't let it go untill we make it happen. We walked into a tour office and asked where we could rent a scooter or motorcycle. We got a big, fat NO before we could even say 'motocicleta'. We asked another office and got the same answer. So then Kate and I said, alright fine. We'll go find one ourselves. Kate asked me, "Where are we going to get one?" I said, "We'll ask someone who is riding one."
We stumbled across a guy and started talking to him--asking if he had any friends who had a motorcycle. He told us there was no way we could borrow one. I can't blame him. Two random girls asking for a motorcycle. Yeah, no. But we did our thing...impressed him with our Spanish and then pretty much said, "We will pay someone for a motorcycle and we aren't leaving until we figure it out." Five minutes later, another guy showed up who said he owned one. He asked if we had a license for a motorcycle. We both said no. Keep in mind, Kate just bought one two weeks ago and learned how to drive it last week while in Utah. I, on the other hand, had no clue. We told him we had cash and we would be back in a few hours. He was SO hesitant because he could get in a lot of trouble but he softened up after we threw some winks his way. This was all in Spanish by the way...so how much we actually communicated, I have no clue.
We heard him say something like 'policia' and 'licensia' and 'tourista no motocicleta'. But in our minds we figured if we could speak enough Spanish to borrow some random homie's motorcycle, we could probably speak enough Spanish to get out of jail. No? We agreed on a price and another five minutes later he showed up with a pretty legit motorcycle. He told us it was clean and to take care of it... he was pretty proud of it. In response Kate said her 'corazon' was 'pura'. And we tried to say that we would pay him if anything happened to his ride.
We heard him say something like 'policia' and 'licensia' and 'tourista no motocicleta'. But in our minds we figured if we could speak enough Spanish to borrow some random homie's motorcycle, we could probably speak enough Spanish to get out of jail. No? We agreed on a price and another five minutes later he showed up with a pretty legit motorcycle. He told us it was clean and to take care of it... he was pretty proud of it. In response Kate said her 'corazon' was 'pura'. And we tried to say that we would pay him if anything happened to his ride.
He handed Kate a bicycle helmet, not a motorcycle helmet... a cheapo bike helmet. I was waiting for my protection--to which there was no response. So. Off we went. Hey, at least she was safe, yeah? She's so young, her whole life is still ahead of her.
Every time we passed a policeman, I tried to hide my blonde hair waving in the wind...as if that would make us less of a target for getting pulled over. We drove directly to the one road that would get us out of town and into the wilderness. And we felt like we were on top of the world. Two girls were never happier to be getting lost on a motorcycle. We couldn't stop laughing because Kate kept yelling, "Heidi I LITERALLY just learned how to ride these things!" Every once and a while we'd stop and yell at some neighbors for directions to a volcano. We'd also stop cars passing us. But I kept telling Kate we can't be friends with everyone. We were prime targets for getting robbed. Two American girls on a motorcycle in the middle of an island. No one around for miles. She didn't seem to care about that. And luckily, we didn't get robbed.
We never found that volcano. Our Spanish apparently wasn't good enough to get us there. But we did find a rainstorm. A turtle breeding ground, a flamingo reserve and some legit beaches.
When we got back into town that night, several other tourists asked us if we were the girls on the motorcycle. They asked where we got it. And as locals do, we winked and said, mis amigos.