the more adventurous

we went out with a bang on the Galapagos. We knew times together were quickly coming to an end and with our final behind us after Thursday morning, we went off to finish souvenir shopping and march in a Christmas parade. I gotta admit that part was weird, I was in a tank top and shorts, walking next to people dressed like santa claus and reindeer, but what are you gonna do, Feliz Navidad.  We gave San Cristobal quite a send off with fun, friends, and some swamming. The next morning began the tearful goodbyes. A lot of us  (yours truly included) are not good at expressing emotions and are not big criers, but such a happy experience I don't think can pass without a sad farewell. Scott and Sam stayed on the islands to later meet their families for some warm Christmas vacations while the rest of us walked on the tarmac to our awaiting plain. Chao Galapagos.

With the GAIAS program we all had two more nights in Quito, including a farewell dinner Saturday night. We went to the University's gourmet restaurant, Marcus. The food was amazing, but the company, ooohh the company, was some of the best I've ever had. As toasts were being made and meals were topped with a thick salse de laughter I realized that there was so much that I wouldn't be able to explain to other back home about this. We took one last group photo, but the love between these wonderful people won't develop fully in the film. So I guess the only way to take it with you is inside. People will tire of stories starting with, "When I was in the Galapagos..." but the imprint that this time has made will last forever, and I hope everyone that I shared this experience with lets the change be evident and share each great moment we shared in the future moments we have with others.

Not very long ago I couldn't have imagined being in this place, but now I couldn't imagine myself without this place. These friendships were are roses without thorns and I love all of you, lagrimas and all.

"I have been, and always shall be your friend."-Spock

Finals

Feliz Navidad

It’s here. The final week in the Galapagos has arrived. I believe it snuck up on all of us here which is evidenced when everything we do now is tainted with some person’s comment that, “It’s the last time we’ll __________.” Just because it’s the last week though, doesn’t mean we’ve slowed down at all. This last class, Human Ecology & Maritime Communities, has us working on a 10 page paper and an actual final that is quickly approaching. Our fun hasn’t run out quite just yet either. Sure, we’ve grown into routines (like jumping of the old pier close to school) but we’re still also adventuring on. Speaking of lasts though, last week I had my last dive here. It’s number 18 in total, and it was my second night dive. We went to Tijeretas again to check out the local night life. With flashlights lighting up the nocturnal, aquatic world we saw space-ship like puffer fish, slipper lobster, and diademas reaching their creepy spines towards the depths.  After we again ascended to the awaiting Orion next to an almost full moon, it really hit me that this was another last. Through my diving here, which I would say was my first real diving experience, I’ve learned a lot, especially how to deal when your equipment is faulty and what to do in strong currents. It was definitely a cool place to learn with amazing marine life (including sharks!!!) and dramatic seascapes. Gracias Galapagos.

Tiburon Martillo

           

 The adventures don’t end there. The next morning, in lieu of class, we went on a fishing trip. 

Se llama Pesca Vivencial and it’s a growing activity that has been promoted by some conservationists to curb the impact of fishing. Diego, our professor, wanted us to experience it for ourselves in order to develop a knowledgeable opinion on it (we’re currently talking about it in class as I write this) It was an awesome experience, we split into groups and went with different fishermen for a Friday morning fishin’ trip. We had a pretty lucky day. Robi was the fishermen that took us around the coast, and he really knew what he was doing. We all got a chance to reel one or two in, and in total we caught 14 fish (barracuda, palometa, and bacalao)! Even just talking to him as we were waiting for bites was cool to learn about his life on the enchanted isles, and how much he loved fishing. The second part of this involved us going to the fisherman’s house to have a dinner with the fish we caught. It was probably the best fish I’ve ever had and it didn’t end there since the melt-in-your-mouth breaded fish was accompanied with some awesome sauce, a nice salad, and more great conversation. 

Neil's Birthday fiesta

            Although it probably won’t be my last time snorkeling here, it was my last snorkel trip on Sunday. I hadn’t planned on going but I was very glad my friends convinced me to go. We went to Playa Ochoa, Isla Lobos, Cerro Brujo, and Leon Dormido. We saw the normal sea life as usual is some usually colder water (it’s supposed to be getting warmer, but I guess it’s taking the Northern Hemisphere approach this year) but at Leon Dormido as we were diving down to swim aside Galapagos sharks a heard the familiar, “smack, smack, smack!” of David signaling me and it was a 2.5 meter long Hammerhead!!!!! My snorkel + sea water stifled scream was audible as I tried to swim as close as possible to it (sometimes I don’t make the best decisions but they keep telling me that the sharks here are vegetarians, quizás). Scott, dove like a bat out of hell down and got the closest to his namesake. We all surfaced after running out of air and high-fived each other as we regained our oxygen back and some warranted fear. We soon left, saying our final despedidas to Leon Dormido as we boated away from that iconic place. It might be a little early but I think our nostalgia is catching up with all of us. We keep bringing up stories of months ago and reminiscing to the max.

Cerro Brujo

            Sweet Tea. I’ve missed it since I arrived here. It’s such a simple thing and a recipe to make it would scarce take up half a page, but it means so much and is so much more than just a drink. It means home. You just steep some tea, add some sugar (while it’s still hot por faaaavorrr) and let it cool and voila! Add some lemon if you wanna, but no me importa. It’s the sweetest thing I think, and while I’ve craved it for sooooo long and enough to choke down some iced nesté and tried to imagine that sweet and smooth elixir. But in all honesty I missed this simple concoction far less than I imagined I would on the long plane ride to Ecuador. Who could have guessed that this place could be that great. Steeped heavy in unbelievable nature and beauty, every day here has been refreshingly full of amazement. And unbeknownst to me I would be thrown here with a group of the loveliest people that I’ve ever met. This trip couldn’t have been soo sweet without them and I really can’t imagine going very long without this concoction that I’ve found here.

Soon headin’ up north to the Land of the Pine.

I’ve got till Friday here, then 2 nights in Quito, then home!

Perhaps this blog might continue

But for now, that’s all folks. 

The Far Side

Montones de Arena

     

    We’re in our final class (chuta). This means these are the last 3 weeks in paradise and the last learning experience on the enchanted isles is quickly passing us by. The class is Human Ecology and Maritime Communities (eww) it’s a very social science class for a very natural science me. But I have to admit for the amount of times I check out and go to facebook world or more often do a crucigrama or a sporcle quiz, I have been enjoying a lot of it. We’ve been talking a lot of philosophies and how it effects how we relate to our environment, especially the sea. There is obviously a focus on the Galapagos, and our professor (a pretty important person in Ecuador and a genius) is getting us to do an artisanal fishing trip to see the real effects of this activity and decide whether it’s a better alternative to fishing. He also just announced he’s going to get the Governor of the Galapagos to come to speak to us (yeh, he’s legit).

                As always in the Ecuador though, unexpected things always pop up (recuerda SOPRESA!?). One of our previous professors, Judith, returned to continue her research and her work on the epidemic that is affecting the Sea Lion populations here on San Cristobal. She also asked us if we wanted to assist in a entire island census over the weekend. It involved being boated to remote beaches to stay overnight and count sea lions on the “dark side of the island” as my friend, David, said. All that were going (a group of GAIAS students and a group of local students) gathered late one night to learn all the regulations and the general plan for the next day. We each got assigned to different areas and all of us hoped for the coolest locations (BTW: Cerro Brujo & Punta Pitt are the coolest for your future reference). The people who helped here in the port with the sea lions got placed (rightfully so) in the coolest spots. I was lucky enough to get assigned to Montones de Arena (yeh, I didn’t really have any idea either). We then got randomly assigned partners. They assigned me with Junior, a local student, who likes sideways-cocked, flat-billed baseball cap and New York emblazoned shirts (match made in heaven). The next day all of us going skipped class bought food and pondered on the adventures we were about to have. We arrived at the old pier on the side of town with all our tents and bags ready to be boated off, even Rico (the ice cream cart driver) came to say, “chao” to us. After traveling along the east side of the island we passed Puerto Chino and a waterfall that drops dramatically to the sea. We soon reached “Mounds of Sand” and Junior and I were the first to be dropped off at our remote site. You could immediately see that we were in the middle of nowhere. One direction showed the endless Pacific and the other a desert landscaped topped with dead volcanoes. Behind the rocky shores were huge dunes of sand covered with you normal beachy brush. If you ignored the volcanic rocks and the cerulean blue waters it looks like a Carolina beach back home. Junior and I fought the wind to set up camp, rested, and went on an epic search to find our sea lions. After about 2 hours of trekking on a dramatically changing shoreline (the softest, untouched sands I’ve ever felt, basalt that looked like pillows, and fields grass waving into the distance) we found no lobos. DONDE ESTAN??? Our whole reason for being (there at least) was gone. We found some lobo bones and skat at the furthest beaches. We also found bastante marine iguanas. So we returned to camp saying that we would come here in the morning just to see if any sea lions showed up from the sea. During our down time I found out that Junior was super talkative and we covered ever possible topic I think, from marriage to American culture (due to lacking in a few key vocabulary words he might now think the US is just like American Pie, whoops), but eventually ocean breezes and shooting stars plying through the Milky Way put us both to sleep.

El Amanecer

                We awoke a las 4 and hiked to our spot. Cero lobos………………UN LOBO!!!!!............no mas lobos……..DOS LOBOS!! In the twilight as dawn approached, every rock looked like a lobo sleeping or doing their morning yoga routine, but in the end we spotted 2, a measly two indicating that the colony must have moved or died out. We walked back along an already made path strewn with horse dung, dog tracks, and a row of goat skulls (to be quite honest this made me fear for nightly visitors). We paused to watch one of the most beautiful sunrises that I’ve ever seen. 

    It wasn’t that bright, incoming rain(?) clouds hung low so it just blazed the color of a red hot poker in between a jeweled Pacific and cotton candy sky. It seems that the boat that was supposed to pick us up was late in retuning, so our little excursion lasted till 3ish in the afternoon leaving me with a gnarly sunburn and the beach a whole lot cleaner since we passed our time listening to Junior’s Ecuajams and picking up the mucha basura. Eventually though we spotted Jorge (a park ranger/veterinarian/ I have no idea) tearing towards us on the zodiac. What a great adventure!

               

  After reviewing our times apart and sleeping a lot a group of us went diving at Punta Pitt (the northernmost part of San Cristobal Island). It is supposed to be more tropical because of the Panamic current and there are also supposed to be WHALE SHARKS!! We had an hour and a half boat ride passing the iconic Leon Dormido and Cerro Brujo. 

Yours Truly

Moorish Idol

     We were soon there jumping into some wonderfully warm water. Scott (probably one of the best dive partners ever-the other is David) was my partner this time and we kept a sharp look out for whale sharks, but not soo much that we missed the Moorish Idol that nonchalantly cruised by. Gil, from Finding Nemo, that’s who it was and that was one of my favorite diving moments, having Scott and I jointly freaking out after seeing this beautiful character. After we calmed we had fallen behind the group, but this gave us the opportunity to have a Dave Master point out the field of garden eels, an eagle ray, and various tropical trigger fish. Scott tried to show me some bite marks on coral, but I guess I missed the memo on bitten coral hand signal cause I was super confused. Scott had I think his second best experience underwater (after seeing hammerheads) we he got surrounded by his favorite fish, the bullseye puffer, and got to touch one of them (shh don’t tell.) 

Scott and his aquatic love

A Galapagos Puffer and some Tortugas later we were back on the surface. We passed our surface time with a quick snorkel around the rock where we could see more Idols, trigger fish, a school of mullet, and I saw a bacalao (this one is a grouper not a cod and is endangered probs cause they taste so darn good). If we got bored with that we could easily just turn upside down a watch the red-footed boobies fly above our heads. Our next dive was at the ol’ Leon Dormido. I’m not bored o it yet but it’s cool that I am now familiar with the underwater topography of a certain place. This time though the currents were crazy and just spent my time trying to stay at depth (gauge was broke). It all turned out alright and we got to warm up to some jumping mantas in the distance and a quick relaxing stop at Puerto Grande. 

Galapagos Puffer

Cerro Brujo

 We’re all both dreading and preparing for the end here, and I’m no different. Now I only have a fishing trip, a 10 page paper, and a final between me and the completion of the semester (only 10 days). It’s about 12 till I’m back in the states and with casi demasiado good memories and my only CD of Christmas music (This Warm December by Jack Johnson and friends-thanks Marissa!) I might just make it there.

Adios to Puerto Grande

Jingle Bell Rock

It ain't Christmas yet, but it sure is getting close. Ecuador has been celebrating La Navidad since the beginning of November (it seems that lacking a holiday between Halloween and Christmas lends itself to causing people to jump the gun on Christmas spirit). However I've been  successful at avoiding the reality that Christmas (and the en of this adventure is quickly approaching) so far. I don't think I can avoid it more though, little things keep bring that warm, family holiday up. Although it's mid 80s to 90s everyday here and I will probably go swimming in the ocean today, a simple Come All Ye Faithful played by Austrian neighbor on his guitar just brings images of real Christmas trees (like the one that now resides in Pinkdoor). The Ecuadorians here have seemed to fully embraced an American Christmas. Bundled up snowmen and Santa Clauses roast under plastic Christmas trees sitting in the equatorial sunlight. And, although usually now sleep with images of hammerheads and blue-footed boobies dancing in our heads, we all feel the end (and Christmas!) approaching.