Galapagos Part I

Well I made a promise to myself that I wasn’t going to go to the Amazon without posting at least part of the English Galapagos blog. Because things have been so busy lately I’m finding myself awake and finishing this thing at 4am the morning of the Amazon trip… but hey, it’s cool… at least it will finally be done!! Well, at least the first part, I’m not anticipating being able to post the whole thing.

So… Galapagos…

We left from Quito early on a Friday morning. We flew down to Guayaquil (a city on the southern coast of Ecuador – where Tania is from! – that is actually bigger than Quito). After a short layover in Guayaquil we left for the Galapagos!

We flew into the island of Baltra. It’s really, really small. Basically it’s only purpose is to house one of the two small airports that the Galapagos Islands has. Even yet, as soon as we landed it was very clear that we were in a very different environment than the one we are used to in Quito. It was so dry! Right now Galapagos is just about at the end of its dry season and it was very clear. There was a huge iguana sunbathing on the runway as we got off the plane. He was just kind of hanging there and lifted his head a little to look at the plane full of people, then went back to sunbathing.

We went through a baggage check to make sure that we were not bringing any restricted items with us to the islands. Galapagos is such a unique and preserved environment that many things are not allowed to be brought (mainly produce, nuts, seeds, things of this sort). From there we met up with our guide, Jorge, and our environmental professor from Quito, Hugo. We took a bus to the other end of the island and then a small boat to cross a short distance to the island of Santa Cruz.

The boat ride was really short but definitely exciting. We saw so many blue-footed boobies. These little birds are hardcore – they were flying in circles and then diving really fast into the water to try to catch some food. They would be under water for a little while and then come back up and start flying all over again. They were pretty cool.

Once we got to Santa Cruz we took another bus to cross the island. It was really cool to see how much the landscape and vegetation changes when you cross the island. The lowest part of the island, the coast all around, is very, very dry. But as you go up higher there is more vegetation, more life, and more greenness in general. We were going to stay the night in a hotel on Santa Cruz. We checked in there and went to have lunch and then walked over to the Charles Darwin Science and Research Center. The walk alone was really cool. We saw lots of crabs and iguanas and lizards all sunbathing by the shore. We also saw pelicans and sea lions. There are many plants that are endemic to the Galapagos Islands and Hugo and Jorge started to tell us a bit about some of them – my favorite was a cactus… that really looks like a tree and then you look up and oh, hey, that’s a huge cactus-of-a-tree up there.

We spent some time at the research center and learned about some of the environmental problems and concerns in the Galapagos. We also saw some of the giant tortoises and the famous “Solitary George” – a poor little (well not so little, more like 400 pounds) guy of a turtle who is the only one left of his kind. The turtles were cool. They were big, and kind of smelly, but definitely cool. They can live for over 250 years!

We stopped by a different part of the coast, an area more like a beach, on our way back to the hotel. By this time it was getting late and the sun was starting to set. It was so pretty! The beach was neat too because the “sand” was really all crushed volcanic rock (p.s. – the Galapagos Islands were formed by a huge hotspot and are still very volcanically active).

We had supper and then rested for the rest of the night. It was nice to have some free time to explore the island a little bit. One of my favorite things had to be how safe the islands are. Unlike Quito, you can walk around and not have to constantly be paranoid about getting robbed or messed with at any minute. This was good – it gave us more of an opportunity to relax and learn and take in the culture/environment without having to worry about getting into trouble. The stars were amazing!!!

Jorge was really great. He hung out with us the whole time and taught us so much! You are actually not allowed to visit the Galapagos Islands without a guide. This is because of all the environmental protection laws to make sure that the islands are well taken care of. Either way, we got lucky to have a really cool guide. He was a lot of fun, informative, and helpful with Spanish, too. Late on Friday he decided to ask us a question that he would proceed to torment us with for the following days – If giant turtles can’t swim for long distances and all of the Galapagos Islands are separated from each other by quite a bit of space, then way are there giant turtles on all of the islands and not just one or two? This question made me nuts because I wanted so badly to know the answer or to figure it out. At first I though it had something to do with the islands moving… then I realized that’s probably not it because of the hotspot and the way of volcanic formation for the area. Then I though maybe the islands had originally been bigger and erosion was a factor. I tried that one on Jorge. Not so much. He kind of laughed at me.

We got up early on Saturday morning and had breakfast – complete with tons of medicine to prevent motion sickness. We got our stuff together and went down to one of the docks of the island. We had to do another baggage check (to make sure we were not bringing anything restricted between the islands) and then we got on to two small boats. For real, small boats. 10 students were in my boat and the remaining 14 went in the other. This would be how we would travel between the islands. Our destination was the island of San Cristobal.

The boats are rough on you. They go fast and are constantly thrown around in the wind – it makes them hit pretty hard against the water. I was sore as a result for almost a week after we got back to Quito. They also make you seasick very quickly and very easily. But honestly, because of the uniqueness of the Galapagos and how important it is to properly preserve them, I’d rather travel in these boats than in one of the big tourist cruise ships. I saw those hanging around the dock too and it really just kind of made me angry. The little boats seemed like they were the lesser of two evils.

We traveled for about 45 minutes and stopped near the very small island of Santa Fe to go snorkeling. This was an amazing and awesome part of our trip that I will never forget. One of my overall highlights from Ecuador all together. It was cold… really, really, really cold, but totally worth it. We had our suits and some basic snorkel gear. We jumped off the sides of the boats and into the FREEZING water… swam a little bit… and ended up on a reef near Santa Fe. It was so cool! There were fish everywhere and sea lions all along the rocks on the coast of the island. I saw this really cool fish – it was huge and brilliant colors or reds and blues and yellows. At only point I put my face down into the water and found myself alone in the middle of a school of hundreds of fish. They swam all around me and were so pretty! I went over with the rest of the group – a little more towards the coast – and the sea lions started jumping into the water. Before we knew it they were swimming with us. They were so much fun – they would come up really close to you and play with you, and then go back to the rocks, climb up, jump back in, and do the whole thing over again. Really fun!

I don’t think I have ever been as cold as I was when I swam back to the boat. I don’t like the water too much but I am still a pretty strong swimmer. But it was so cold that my muscles were not wanting to work anymore and I really struggled just to make it back to the boat. When I got there one of the other guides lifted me out of the water and back into the boat because I didn’t have enough strength to climb up by myself. We were all cold – they gave us juice and pop and all kinds of foods and sugars to help us warm up. I was kind of bummed because it didn’t take the other students too long to warm up again but it took me a really long time. Jorge ended up wrapping me up in extra towels and his jacket and then sitting me in the warmest (sheltered) part of the boat. We still had almost 2 hours to go by boat before we would make it to San Cristobal. I eventually started to warm up a little. One of my friends lent me her ipod and I listened to that as we traveled. Another one fell asleep on top of me - good for warmth as well. The music served as a nice distraction and was actually really peaceful. I ended up being really at ease and relaxed, despite the cold, and haven’t felt that connected to the earth and life and God in a long time. Eventually I found myself not caring about the cold because I was so relaxed and so content with just being there and in that moment.

We made it to San Cristobal and checked in to the hotel where we were going to stay for the night. Then we went to another research center and saw more turtles and wildlife that is also native and endemic to the islands. We did some hiking – which I loved! – and then Jorge tormented us a little more with his question saying that whoever got the answer would win a guide t-shirt from the Galapagos. None of us could get it.

We went for another walk around the island. This one was longer and less formal – more just so that we could observe our surroundings and appreciate them. A lot of the students were chatting as they walked but I think the cold took a lot out of me and I wanted to be quiet and walk a little separated from everyone else. But during that time I got to thinking about Jorge’s question… and I figured it out!

I went to ask him about it… my theory was that because the islands are all formed by the same hotspot, and as a result the depth of the water between the islands is not as deep as it would be if you were out in the middle of the ocean… it’s actually more or less shallow. So, with that and given the fact that the earth naturally goes though hot and cold cycles, what would happed if there was an ice age? I though that maybe if there was an ice age and more water was to freeze at the poles of the earth, it would lower the overall sea level enough so that more land of the Galapagos was exposed. If that were to happen, maybe the islands would be connected to each other for a temporary time – allowing turtles to walk (not swim) between the different areas. At the end of the ice age when the water level rose again the turtles would remain on all the islands and not just one or two. I went to ask Jorge and he said I was right. I was excited. Not only did I win a t-shirt but the question was finally off of my mind!

We hung out on the island until evening and then went and had supper. It was suprising to me how developed the two islands we first went to were. Only 3% of the overall land of Galapagos is like this - the remaining 97% is protected - but still, I wasn't expecting the level of development and high population that we saw on Santa Cruz and San Cristobal. We did a little more exploring and then went to bed. We were going to move between islands again the next morning and we all wanted to rest. The next day was Isabella - less people, more environmental, and a very active island volcanically.

Okay… y’all have two of the five days we spent traveling (don’t worry, day five is pretty boring, so you have half the story here). I need to go shower and finish packing for this next adventure to the Amazon (I have to be at the airport in two hours!!!) but I will post the rest of this thing on Monday night. I love you all back in the States and I hope you’re doing well. Happy November! I miss all of you and can’t wait for some hugs and visits NEXT MONTH!!

p.s. Pat – getting on your knees like a little kid and begging for sweets on Halloween is pathetic!! But did it work!?!? You crack me up! I’ll bet you I could do better… if I dress up… most people think I’m 14 anyways (21 in a month!)! Next year it’s on! Let’s see who can do better. Your height hurts you. :-) Miss you!!!!