Galapagos: Los Tuneles de Bellavista

The main attractions in the Galapagos, other than the wildlife, revolve around the volcanic geology of the islands.  On Santa Cruz there are lots of lava tunnels.  One of the tunnels, Los Tuneles de Bellavista (or Tuneles de Amor) is the second longest in South America – 2250m long.  We decide to give it a go.

Perhaps it has been too long away from civilisation or perhaps too long around overly relaxed people, but we were particularly unprepared for our trip to the lava tunnels.  We leave Toodles early in the morning, chatting away to fellow cruiser friends on the water taxi ride in.  Once we say goodbye to our friends, we realise we have forgotten the name of the particular tunnels we want to go to.  We head to the internet café to Google it.  Now with the name of the place in hand, we manage to communicate where we want to go to the taxi driver. 

Half way to the tunnels, we realise we have no flashlight – perhaps this might have been handy since we are visiting underground caves?  We hope for the best and carry on. 

We are dropped outside what looks like a residential house, and in fact is.  It is the house on the property that boasts the entry to the lava tunnels, and therefore is able to charge you for access. 

The first man we meet is a bit ruffed up, with a smear of mud down one side and cobwebs on his hard hat.  He greets us with a big smile and thankfully speaks English.  He isn’t a tour guide, nor affiliated with the tunnel, but is instead a geologist and the author of the Central and South American Lava Tunnels book, which takes pride of place on the desktop.  He just happened to be taking some friends through the tunnel that morning.  He chats to us about the best way to go through the tunnel and what we might see.  The tunnel has two parts, one easy and one hard.  We decide to do both.  We tell him we are without a flashlight and he reassures us that the girl behind the desk will lend us one.  Then he catches sight of our shoes….flip flops, of course.  He tentatively suggests that we might want to go back for our tramping boots.  We decide we will give it a go anyway.

With borrowed flashlight in hand, we venture through the back garden and down the steps into the cave. 

As we descend the steps, we can feel the cool air engulfing us. It is very dark and very quiet.  My ears ring with the silence, reminding me of when I have returned home from a loud concert.  We are the only people in the tunnel.  We turn on our flashlight and realise something that should have been obvious had we thought about it:  the tunnel is damp.  Beads of water hang from the ceiling, looking as if they are glowing when we shine the torch on them, and drop into the pools of water on the ground making a pleasant "drip, drip" sound.  

Most of the pathway on the easy side of the tunnel is flat, although we scramble over the odd pile of loose volcanic rock: a particularly difficult task in slippery flip flops!  We make it to the end of the tunnel and give ourselves a pat on the back.  

Now for the more difficult side of the tunnel.

The difficult part of the tunnel is not advertised and not signposted.  We follow the directions our author friend has given us, climbing over a log that seems strategically placed to block the pathway.  The entrance to this part of the tunnel is not as easy: no steps in sight, but instead a crawl down some mud and rocks.  Inside the tunnel there is no nice flat path, only piles of loose rock.  We struggle through the first 500m or so, to the first opening to the surface.  This part has taken us over 30 minutes.  We had been recommended to take the right hand tunnel from here, which leads to the best parts of the lava caves.  To get down this side is a bit of a close call, requiring some crawling and resulting in a few bumps on the head.  As we descend slowly further underground, I get more and more unhappy. 

Perhaps this is the point to tell you that Gary’s worst fear is falling into a lava river, and mine is being trapped underground.  I can’t give you any particular explanation for Gary’s fear, but mine stems from doing some extreme caving at a leadership camp where we had to crawl on our stomachs for 20 metres, with only barely enough room to lift your cheek off the ground before your head hit the roof.

While descending this part of the lava cave, exaggerated thoughts begin to spin through my head:  Perhaps they blocked the pathway because the ceiling rocks are coming loose? Perhaps the rock a centimetre from my head might fall at any moment?  Maybe the rocks behind us will fall blocking our exit?  And, who really knows we are here?  So I chicken out and head back to the exit to the surface we had just passed.  Gary decides to continue on.  He is gone a while, but comes back after not reaching the end.  Apparently similar thoughts had plagued him as he ventured further underground alone.  Thinking about it logically, there really was no risk of rocks falling.  The geologist who surveys tunnels and writes them up in a book had literally just gone through the tunnel.  Surely he wouldn’t have suggested we go through the tunnel if there had been any problems.  But this wasn’t a comfort to us while crawling a kilometre underground, over rocks, in the darkness, in slippery jandals.

We exit the tunnel at this half way point.  There is no path above ground.  We weave our way through an overgrown banana plantation, pulling apart spider webs with the end of the flashlight.  We find our way to the main road and back to the house to return the flashlight. 

We had expected, being a tourist attraction, there would be lots of taxis waiting to take us home.  But there isn’t, nor is anyone able to call one for us. We head back to the main road and walk the few kilometres to the nearest town where we do find a taxi. 

Have we learned any lessons?  We’ll see….