The Origin of Species - Galapagos Trip

Chuck Darwin once said, “But when on shore, & wandering in the sublime forests, surrounded by views more gorgeous than even Claude ever imagined, I enjoy a delight which none but those who have experienced it can understand,” and although I’m not quite sure which Claude he is referring to, I could not agree more with this statement.  As I try to reflect on the past couple days, I know my words will not do it justice, however I’ll try.

First, we arrive directly into 85degree weather onto the island of Balta, which I think is basically just used as the airport island with nothing much more on it.  As we walk onto the dock for the dinghys that will take us to our cruise ship, everyone whipped out their cameras to snap photos of the sea lions who were taking their midday siestas right in our path – little did we know that the excitement was a little dramatic as we would be seeing much more of the loveable creatures later.    

Never being on a cruise, it took a little bit of time to get used to the swaying motion of the book; as a matter of fact, I don’t think I ever got used to it.  I, being the graceful person that I am, twin to Sarah Thrashintino, was stumbling all over the place, and showering was more than a little dangerous for me.  The worst was in the dining room where while you were eating you saw the land disappear into sky, and back down again, over and over and over again.  Fortunately, I never got sick, or surprisingly, fell to the floor, even while managing to get free drinks by flirting with the bartenders. Ahh the perks of being an American girl.  

Each morning at 645, Big Brother would come onto the PA system, playing dreamy music, and apologize for waking us out of our dreams.  They would then warm us that breakfast is in 15 minutes.  More or less a snooze button was pushed after that announcement, because at 7 another announcement woke us up for real, and we went out to enjoy a delicious buffet with omelet station, tons of fresh fruit, and the best cereal I’ve had in Ecuador, I really should have gotten the name.   Then at 730 we would begin our first expedition of the day.  Each expedition would lead us to a new island.  At lunch the ship would move to a new location, and overnight, we would make our longer trips to further islands.  The afternoon we landed in the Galapagos, we made our first trip to the island of Bartolome.   It was one of the relatively newer islands, only about 800,000 years old and it was basically just a pile of lava.   However, it gave some really great views of the other islands and the ocean and gave us our first introduction to the lava lizard, which is deceivingly fast for being so small, and also the hideous land iguanas which remind me of tiny dinosaurs.  After returning to the ship, I instantly realized why I would love the staff…waiting for us was little fried chicken fingers, or so I thought.  They were really fried fish, but man, oh man, were they delicious.  Yet somehow, after each expedition, they seemed to outdo themselves, moving up to steak, chicken, pepper, and onion shiscabobs, and eventually fondue, even with white chocolate! 

We began our second day with a trip to Isabela Island where we saw a plethora of more land iguana, and huge tortoise hiding in the bushes, some sea turtle nests, and a bunch of Darwin finches.  In my brevity about talking about these creatures, I may seem to down play the incredibleness of seeing these spectacles, but that’s simply to make a long story short.  We could also see the island from which the book we are reading from class is based on, Daphne Major. It really brought reality to the book which hopefully will make for an easier read.

Later that afternoon we travelled to Fernandina Island where we encountered the land iguanas’ evil twin, the marine iguana.   Now, I call the marine iguana the evil twin not because they ever did anything too spiteful, but instead because I think they will give me nightmares later.  They were literally everywhere.  And since the lava was black and the iguanas were black, at first glance you couldn’t even see them.  But, when you look closer, you realize that everywhere you looked you were completely surrounded by these crazy scary looking reptiles with spikes on their backs that slither when they walk.  If for any reason they decided they wanted to attack us, we would have been smothered within a minute.  Yet, the Attack of the Marine Iguanas is merely a phantom of my imagination, and the most menacing thing they did was spit at you if you walked to fast in front of them.  It was actually very surprising home much these animals, along with mostly any animal we came across, did not care that we were there.  They never had to adapt to being scared of humans, and as a result, they just view us as any other species that live with them on the Galapagos.   Needless to say, this helped for some great photo opportunity; if you don’t believe me, see Figure A, my profile picture. 

Fernandina was also the island that we learned that our excitement of seeing the one or two sea lions upon first arrival to the Galapagos was a little dramatic.   Here you could see sea lions where ever you looked – sleeping, fighting, eating, and babies flipping and playing in the water, it was amazing.    The baby sea lions remind me a lot of little puppies and it took all the strength I had in me to resist picking ne up to cuddle with it.

Another interesting animal we found was the flightless cormorant, a bird that has lost his ability to fly and simply swims around looking for his food.  In my opinion, I think these birds ended up picking the short straw in terms of evolution…who would ever want to lose the ability to fly?

On the third day we headed over to Santiago and here we saw even more iguanas and sea lions, finches, fly catchers, and hawks.  However, what made this island really memorable was that the little birds, I think they were the fly catchers, would come up and land right on your head or hat or camera.  They had no qualms about it whatsoever.   Also, here we were able to see tons of sea turtles swimming around.   In the afternoon, we moved onto Rabida Island, which had beautiful red sand, and was also full of many iguanas and sea lions by the shore.   Before we left Rabida Island, we went on a dinghy ride around its shore.  This was the best time to catch a glimpse of all the exotic and unique birds that live there.  We saw blue footed boobies, crazy birds that dive their whole bodies from super in the air like missiles, and who had bright sky blue feet.  We also saw some little penguins, which I am still confused how penguins live in 85 degree weather, but I guess that’s a good question for Mr. Darwin.  There were also some herons ( holla William Smith!)  and pelicans which were actually extremely freaky looking.

            That night we had the “Neptune Party” where anyone who wanted to participate (lured by a free drink if you do) would get to dress and act out a play showing how Neptune, God of Sea, deals with this ship crossing the equator 4 times without his permission.  Following that, our guides decided to host an extremely inappropriate yet extremely hilarious couples game show, which included trying to guess which man was yours while blindfolded by grabbing various butts and testing out kisses.  Next they would have to pop balloons in comprising positions.  Apparently, Neptune is a crazier power  than I assumed him to be.   

            The next day we traveled to the Charles Darwin Research facility on the island of Santa Cruz, the only island that we went to that we saw human civilization there.  The main attraction of the research center was Lonesome George, the last remaining member of the Pinta Island Tortoises. We did found out however, that the research facility is pimping him out to two woman tortoises that have 80% of his genes and thus will make babies very similar to him.  Yet, even though both of these ladies have done their part and laid some eggs to keep the species from extinction, they staff did not find them in time and the eggs were attacked by funguses.  Imagine the guilt trip that staff will have if these species goes completely extinct. The afternoon was also filled with more tortoises that were humongous and old—  they can live up to 200 + years and never stop growing their entire life.

            The last day we went to Bachas and the highlight of this trip was seeing the flamingos.  At first there was just one flamingo far off in the lagoon.  Then we look up into the sky and see three humungous birds gliding through the sky, circling the lagoon where we were standing.   After a couple loops around they prepared for their landing and skidded to a stop right in front of us. Without sounding cliché, it was picture perfect.  We ended the trip by taking a little dip in the crystal clear water and headed back on our way to Quito.  Unfortunately, it was only 60 and rainy when we got back, but I guess I can’t really complain when there is snow in Buffalo!

Saving the best for last, I waited to talk about the snorkeling.  Before I went, I was skeptical about how cool it would be, seeing as you couldn’t really dive to see because the snorkel was only yeh long.  Wow, was I mistaken.  The first day we went snorkeling,  it was it crystal clear water and you could see down so deep there was no reason to even dive.  I followed around schools of fish of gorgeous colors, and saw one scary looking fish who scales look like that from the Rainbow Fish book you read when your in 3^rd grade or so.  The second attempt at snorkeling, I managed to catch glimpses of sea lions, more fish, and penguins, and was actually able to follow around a sea turtle.  I tried to take a picture of it, but we’ll see how that comes out when I get the film developed.  On the next snorkeling adventure, we actually went “deep sea snorkeling” which really means you flip out from a dinghy instead of walking off land but this expedition was when the most fun happened.  I probably saw about 15 sea lions and was able to dive with them, tumble with them, and blow bubbles at each other’s faces.  It was amazing.   We also were able to swim with the white-tipped sharks, but those were vegetarian so there was really no reason to be afraid.   The sharks we saw at night, the Galapagos sharks, were a different story.  They are descendants of the great whites, but much smaller. Luckily, we didn’t swim with them, but it was a great sight to see sharks, sea lions, and  pelicans all fighting over the same flying fishies, that could leap 20 yards in a single leap, from the safe distance of the ship’s deck every night.

So here I am, 4 weeks into my semester abroad and have once again been on two of most amazing and memorable trips of my life -  what can I say, I’m living the life…

Sometimes I regret telling my family, “comeré todo que tu haces.”  Basically, I did it because I figured it would be easier than searching through my Spanish-English dictionary and listing off all the food that I would not touch in the Estados Unidos, but recently I realized it may have been worth the trouble.  This realization came after forcing down cauliflower quiche, sautéed mushroom dishes, yuca soup, an overflowing plateful of lima bean-esqe lentils, and countless other meals I was afraid to ask what they were.  Yet, the staff at ACLAS, the school I’m currently at, tells us that it is extremely rude in this country to not finish what is on your plate, so with a smile on I persevere.  But, don’t let this paragraph fool you; I was being a bit dramatic.  Most of the time I do enjoy the food I have here, especially the homemade ice cream and pizza….pizza, pizza, pizzzzza!

            The soccer game was not nearly as dangerous as it was made out to be, at least not in the sense of the rowdiness of the crowds.  The beer on the other hand, is a different story – we should have realized it would make us sick when the pitchers were spray painted Tupperware containers you would use to serve lemonade at your house.  Nevertheless, we were able to see three fantastic goals by Liga, including a header from a corner kick, which made the crowds go absolutely crazy.

            Much of the last week was pretty relaxed.  I went for a run for the first time since I’ve been here because they say to wait at least a week to get used to the altitude in Quito, which is at 9895 ft.  I probably lasted about 10 minutes and even that made me feel like I couldn’t walk the next day.   Wednesday, I went to a casino, which almost didn’t let us in because they claimed they smelled alcohol on one guy’s breath, even though he only had one beer.  Yet, living with the elite of Quito has its advantages – one friend called up his sister who made a couple of calls and all of sudden they were ushering us in.  Confused about why they wouldn’t want drunk people in their casino in the first place, the sister explained to us that they considered themselves a classy hotel and didn’t want the ruckus.  Yea, okay, a “classy” casino with $2 minimums.   The best I was during the night was 14 dollars up, but ended up 20 bucks down— I really have to work on my card counting skills. 

            Saturday I resumed my adventurous activities by climbing a dormant volcano, Mt. Pichincha.  We begun by taking the Teleferico, which is like a ski lift, from the base of the mountain up 3000 feet, and then continued climbing from there.  At first it didn’t seem too difficult, but before I knew it I wouldn’t be able to walk 5 minutes without stopping – I like to think it was the lack of oxygen from the altitude than me not really being in shape.  Most of the way there was walking paths that you could follow, but as we continued higher and higher, the terrain became harder and the paths started to disappear.   At one point, there was a steep section of just sand that you had climb up to reach the last leg of jagged rocks that would bring you to the top.   At this point, I was out of water and out of food, and seriously thinking I was going to pass out  - I felt like I was in one of the movie scenes where the person is in the desert clawing there way through the sand, hallucinating about an oasis of water.   But then I saw Alfredo, this random old, bald man who appeared out of nowhere to help my friends and I navigate through the mountain, calling to me and I knew I couldn’t give up. As soon as I got to the rocks, I got my second wind, and climbed through the rocks, which given a wrong step could send you tumbling to your death down the steep cliffs on either side.   Reaching the most amazing feeling ever.  I would have to say the whole four hour climb was not really an enjoyable one, but in the end was worth the feeling of accomplishment.  At the summit, there was an amazing view of the huge city of Quito, which turns out to wrap around the mountains.  An even cooler feeling was standing literally in the clouds.  Of the ten people who came, only 4 made it to the top. 

….And almost only 3 of us made it down.  During the descent, I got a bad footing and started falling down the cliff on the side of the mountain.  At first I thought I could catch myself, but learned very quickly that instead I was simply gaining speed.   With huge jagged rocks and boulders everywhere, I had no clue what to do, and really thought that I was going to tumble at full speed head first into a boulder, or at least break my bones bouncing of these rocks.  Luckily, I when I went down I miraculously avoided slamming into any of the huge rocks, and just skidded along tumbling on my butt.  As it turns out I survived, with no broken bones, but only gashes and cuts covering my bottom! 

            But now Sunday, a very lazy day, I must get back to reading The Beak of the Finch, to prepare myself for an epic cruise through the Galapagos Islands which begins Thursday!

Gringos in Ecuador

I never realized how awkward it is for Sarge when I’m looking him straight in the eyes, talking to him as if he understands me, when in fact he really has no clue what is coming out of my mouth.  Now, after two weeks in Ecuador, I can understand his awkwardness.  His situation of course is different than mine because he actually cannot hear a single word I say, but I would have to argue that my situation is comparable.  Living with a host family is great – they cook me breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day, each meal with a fresh fruit smoothie made on the spot included, and since they have the best fruit I have ever tasted here, the smoothies are well worth the awkwardness of trying to hold a conversation throughout the entire meal.   I get my own room with a WiFi connection, and my parents don’t really care where I go or when I come home as long as I tell them what I’m doing – this latter part is again a struggle in itself.  But while the mounds of delicious food is great, if you haven’t caught on yet, the language barrier poses a minor problem for me.   It was pretty bad at first, and I felt like a complete idiot, but now, its not so horrible.  I feel like I can understand most of what they say to me, I just have trouble trying to respond back.  Yet, if the improvement I’ve seen in the last two weeks continues, I should feel pretty confident by the time I leave, fingers crossed.

            Despite the fact that Quito is one of the most dangerous places for robberies in the world (and one of my friends have already gotten robbed) I would have to say that the people I’ve met are some of the most welcoming and hospitable people I have ever met.  Even take a look at the robbery -  the girl had most of her money, besides 2 bucks, tucked away in her bra and it was pretty obvious she had things stashed there, but the robber did not even notice -  consequently, we can conclude that he was at least a conscientious robber who didn’t stare at womens’ chests.  In seriousness though,  the first day I was walking to class my sandal broke and immediately my friends dad who I was walking with knocked on the tailor we were passing and asked her to fix it.  Two minutes and 50 cents later, my shoe was as good as new!  Thankfully, because I would have stood out more as a gringo, the pet name Ecuadorians call us Americans, not only with light hair and light skin, but walking around with only one shoe on – basically wearing a sign that says, “rob me now.”   

            On the topic of gringos, our favorite place to go is La Plaza Foch, or Gringo Landia, where all the gringos go to get there party on.   Its basically just a huge strip and bunch of side streets of bars each with their only advertiser standing outside nagging you in Spanglish come in.  Inside Gringo Landia it’s supposed to be relatively safe, but step a few blocks out of its territory and you have reason to worry  - I feared for my life when the taxi driver ripped by telling us we were there, and finding out we were still 8 blocks away – these guys can spot our ignorance from a mile away.  Also there are nice salsa bars which would be cool if I knew how to salsa dance.  However, after a few drinks, I’m determined I know everything and decided to test my inner gracefulness.  Had it not been for three different guys teaching me three different ways to salsa, I may have learned by the end of the night, but needless to say I’m still a failure.  Good thing they’re offering lessons at our school, that way I’ll go back and really show these Ecuadorians my stuff.  

            I had my first day of actual classes on Thursday and they don’t seem like they will be too bad.  In my Spanish classes, we are only allowed to speak and ask questions in Spanish, and if she catches you speaking English, you have to get up and dance in front of the class.  Punishment?  I think not… it merely gets me warmed up for the nights activities! My econ one seems pretty interesting and not an overwhelming amount of work and my bi-dis one just seems like it’s going to be a chaotic debate between the economists and the environmentalists over the oil crisis in the amazon todos las dias with nothing getting accomplished.  I’m also doing community service two days a week where I work with disadvantaged kids, ages 4-6 old, after school.  I’m hoping that being around these kids who speak absolutely no English will help my learning curve grow even faster.

            Sunday I’m going to the Liga de Ecuador vs. Barcelona game.  Don’t get too excited, but its not Barcelona de Espana as all of my friends and I thought at first, its Barcelona de Guayaquil.  It’s supposed to be a huge rivalry game though, which the staff at our school, ACLAS, warned us not to go to because it’ll be dangerous.   If I survive, I’ll let you know how it is.