This past week we had off from school so guess the group did…we went island hopping!! After a great Friday night Halloween party that ended with me staying up til 5am (that’s right, I can still party like it’s 1999), we were ready at the tourist pier for our 1:30pm boat ride to Santa Cruz. Two hours later we were back safely on land (thank goodness. The boat almost stopped in the middle of the Pacific and I started yelling ‘don’t stop! DON’T STOP!’ The waves are no bueno). Our hotel housed three people per room (you have to choose your mates wisely). With a third-floor balcony and a super hot shower it was a nice, clean place to spend three nights. I discovered something new on this trip, too: Even though I’ve shut my cell phone off for the duration of the trip, it still picks up a wifi signal! Meaning that my iPhone addicted has been reinstated. Pffff. No esta bien.
Sunday morning was a super early day…out the door around 6:30am, I believe. We took a 45-minute bus ride to the northern-most side of the island to catch a boat for a two-hour-ish ride to Bartolome, a very beautiful and picturesque island (I believe its landscape is one of the most photographed in the Galápagos) with great snorkeling. We first hiked the 365 steps (one for every day of the year) to the scenic viewing area, then jumped back in the boat and headed around the bend to the beach! Brown sand with crystal clear blue water…sigh. There are so many places that I would love to put my vacation home.
Sunday morning was a super early day…out the door around 6:30am, I believe. We took a 45-minute bus ride to the northern-most side of the island to catch a boat for a two-hour-ish ride to Bartolome, a very beautiful and picturesque island (I believe its landscape is one of the most photographed in the Galápagos) with great snorkeling. We first hiked the 365 steps (one for every day of the year) to the scenic viewing area, then jumped back in the boat and headed around the bend to the beach! Brown sand with crystal clear blue water…sigh. There are so many places that I would love to put my vacation home.
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A happy moment by Bartolome
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| Scenic view form the summit of Bartolome |
I’m pretty sure I’m getting used to all this rocky Pacific water because the boat ride back to Santa Cruz was ridiculously rough, but I seemed to sleep through the whole thing minus a Dramamine, moving furniture and all.
Monday was equally fun, although we stayed around Santa Cruz. Sleeping in just a tad (sleeping in is 6:30, 7ish even on a vacation because all of your activities are pre-booked for you), we were on a boat around 9am to go snorkeling. I’m not sure who thought it would be a great idea to get into the Pacific Ocean before 10am, but somehow it all worked out okay. We took a boat across the bay to a small piece of land (which we weren’t allowed to get on – National Park rules) and boat snorkeled. The water was pretty cold (especially without a wetsuit; I had forgotten mine on San Cristóbal). The was a large reef that we could swim around and low and behold…there were sea lions swimming among the reef! These guys were so playful; it was a lot of fun swimming in and out of the reef with them. What was even more fun was the current: you had to hold onto the reef and position your body in opposition to the current otherwise you’d get pushed into something (very hard), and I preferred not to get scratched up by the reef, someone’s flippers, or a sea lions teeth (if that is even possible).
Following snorkeling we got off the boat to walk to Canal de las Tintoreras, a canal that’s connected to the ocean where the sharks rest during the day. I believe these were the specie that’s endemic to the Galápagos archipelago, the Galápagos Shark. They were there, resting. The park doesn’t allow swimming within these channels (there are numerous ones throughout the archipelago) because they’re afraid it will disrupt the sharks natural behavior; that’s what’s so special about the Galápagos. These creatures are in their natural environments and either don’t care about you because they’ve seen too many humans or they’re really curious and want to check you out.
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| Las Grietas |
Getting back in the boat, we were dropped off at another pier for the 15minute walk to Las Grietas, another canal, except that you can swim in this one. The walk over ‘aa’ rock lead to this beautiful canal with high walls from which people were jumping from into the crystal clear water. I didn’t jump, but my mentality is that I’ll be back on Santa Cruz in two weeks for one week, so I can go back whenever I want to, although two other girls made it to the top and jumped. There was one guy from Greece that was bragging he was going to do a flip so I edged him on (I know, dangerous, but it would at least be entertaining and he’s the idiot for doing the flip), only to find out he was afraid of heights and it takes him 20 minutes to get the courage to jump. Poor guy. Too much thinking, not enough action. I met quite a few of these daredevil tourists at Las Grietas who were shocked (and I think a little jealous) to hear that I actually lived on San Cristóbal. This is not information I ran around telling people, I only mentioned it because it was assumed I was on a cruise and I had to set them straight: I can’t afford a Galápagos cruise.
The post-lunch activity involved going to a beach (not the infamous beach at Tortuga Bay, which I have yet to visit – though I still have time – but some other beach). I decided not to go and took a nap in my room instead. These trips of endless activities can actually be really exhausting. Two hours (maybe more) later (I know, right? How awesome is that?!) my friend and I stumbled out into the town only to run into a group of people that were eating dessert (before dinner of course, that’s the way we do things here) at a restaurant. Given that I’ve had more ice cream/dessert/whatever on the Galápagos than I have the entire year in the states, I gave in and ordered apple pie a la mode, which I thought fitting given the season (well, it’s always summer here, but it’s apple season in NY). It was delicious, and I plan to go back when I return to Santa Cruz in two weeks (where I’ll also be on Thanksgiving).
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| The ride to Isabela: 3 of the 4 brothers with Isabela in the background. |
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| White-tip shark |
Tuesday morning involved another boat ride, but this time a long one to Isabela. It was the same boat that Mountain Geology took from Isabela to San Cristóbal, the boat that released the gasoline fumes that made most of us sick…ugh. We only had to hear the name of the boat; didn’t need to see it to figure it out. That name will be forever etched in my mind. Thankfully someone just happened to have a solution to this fume problem, so many of us had tiger balm smeared along our upper lip for the trip. After lunch we took a boat, well, since there were 38 of us in total there were many boats, to Grieta de las Tintoreras, another channel where the sharks rest. The cool part is that this Tintoreras is on an island of volcanic rock where the iguanas breed. There are all these juvenile iguanas everywhere just hanging out (and super larger ones). I had a great time walking real slow behind a large group of them and making them run, haha. Hey, it’s not mean because that’s what the park says you’re supposed to do when an animal is in your path: walk slowly by it. I just happened to walk directly at them. Oh yeah, and the sharks were white tips.
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| Marine iguana. The males are larger and have bigger spines than the females. |
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| Juveniles |
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| Wilson and I dressed for the occasion. |
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| Social guy at the tortoise breeding center |
Wednesday was also Halloween!!! I didn’t bring my costume with me because it reeked of smoke from Friday night, but it was interesting to see some of the other costumes at one of the bars. I’m pretty sure the bars (of which there are two on the island) put up decorations specifically for the tourists because Halloween is not a holiday here. Being tired from my two naps earlier in the day (that’s right, I took two naps), I retired to the hotel around 10:30pm but hung out with the guides til midnight or so (I know them from San Cristóbal).
I honestly can’t remember what we did Thursday. Oh yeah, snorkeling. When you snorkel everyday it screws up your sense of time, as does the lack of seasons and steady daylight hours (12 hours). Back on yet another boat (last boat ride for two weeks!!!), we went an hour or so to around Isabela to the west to the tuneles. These are awesome rock formations: they are tunnels of volcanic rock (from eruptions, of course) that are slowly collapsing. You can swim right through the tunnels though, and there are rays, huge fish, tortugas, ect. I actually thought I saw the biggest fish ever but when I got a little closer it turned out to be a sea lion. Sigh. We went to two different locations. The first time I snorkeled, the second time I couldn’t because I was just too cold. At the first place the water was mas fria, but it was tortuous because there were really warm spots (or at least what seemed like a warm spot), and then the freezing cold water hit you like a brick wall as you were swimming. Not very pleasant and I didn’t see anything that I wouldn’t normally see at home on San Cristóbal. The rock formations were beautiful though.
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| Ray with blowfish |
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| Boobies. |
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| Tunules |
After lunch the group went to an actual lava tunnel (it’s huge, I was there a month ago), and a few of us rented bikes and rode out to the Muro de las Lágrimas (Wall of Tears). During WWII, the US Armed Forces set up a camp on Baltra Island (just north of Santa Cruz), as well as other strategic points in the Galápagos, including Isabela Island. Then, in 1946, after the U.S. had already left the island, 300 prisoners and 30 policemen landed on Isabela Island to create a penal colony away from the mainland. They used the infrastructure left by the U.S. Army. The wall was made to corral the prisoners, as well as to keep them busy working. This lead to the construction of the ‘Wall of Tears’. The prisoners were harshly punished, therefore the saying “Here, the strong cry and the weak die”.
On Friday morning it was time to return home to San Cristóbal. I had prepared for a rough boat ride back and bought a plane ticket (even though there really isn’t an aeropuerta on Isabela) with the intentions of flying back. So while everyone else was scarfing down their breakfast and packing their bags to be ready to go by 7:45am, I was laying on the beach taking my first nap of the nap. I was told to be ready around 11:30am for a 1:30ish (nothing is ever on time in Ecuador) flight. After hanging out by myself (seriously, I was the only one there) at the aeropuerta for 2 hours, just relaxing in the sun, the plane finally landed. The people that got off the plane were the type that expected someone to carry their bags for them. I just laughed to myself as I watched them finally gather their belongings and walk towards the building. It’s very amusing to watch the tourists (I don’t consider myself one because not only do I live here, but I don’t require a natural guide with me every where I go like most tourists do). After a nice relaxing morning on the beach it was finally my time to go home, although the moment was bittersweet because I love Isabela. The plane, if you can call it that, was an 8-seater including the pilot and co-pilot (who was absent). I watched the guy that put our few bags in the plane ‘check’ the plane, which involved him climbing on the top of the plane and sticking a foot-long stick into each fuel tank on either wing, look at it, then shake it. All I could think was ‘if that’s how they check the fuel level, this is going to be a long flight’. On the plane I got to sit right behind the pilot. There weren’t any barriers between him and his passengers. The ‘cockpit’ contained many manual switches and knobs, with everything written… in English. I quickly realized I was on a plane that easily could’ve been twice my age, if not older. Now I’ve become very laid back throughout my island living experience, but this did create a slight anxiety within me; thoughts of ‘oh why didn’t I just suck it up and get on the boat’ ran through my head. When the pilot started up the plane it was just like what you would see in a black and white movie (which confirmed my suspicions of the age of the plane and raised my anxiety level a little more). The part that really got me chuckling was when the pilot plugged the address of ‘San Cristóbal’ into the aviation GPS on the dashboard. My life was in the hands of a GPS and lots of manual equipment, most of which I didn’t understand, I just saw needles moving about. Take-off was fairly smooth, although these small planes can’t just blast through air currents like the jets can, we kind of got carried by them until we got to a higher altitude. When we were finally at cruising altitude I had another inner panic of ‘the cabin isn’t pressurized! What’s going to happen with the oxygen!’, forgetting, of course, that I’ve been at 4900m and although had great difficulty, was still able to breathe. Plus, there’s no way that tiny little plane would have even made it that high. It probably would have fallen apart from the pressure of the altitude. I noticed that throughout a quarter of the flight we were slightly tilted to the left…hmmm...panic rising. Thankfully the pilot quickly corrected himself and we flew fairly straight for the remainder of the flight. Now, these aircraft should not have the main fuel gauge in an area that’s viewable to passengers. I watched both main fuel gauges drop quite significantly through the first half of the flight… ‘are we going to have enough fuel to make it home?! There’s a backup fuel tank, but you have to switch it on. What happens between the time the main fuel tank is empty and the pilot switches to the reserve? Is that engine going to just drop? AHHHH….’
It didn’t even end there. So not only did I get to watch our plane blip along the Pacific Ocean on the GPS, but the pilot was reading, what? The newspaper while flying the plane? Oh no, he was reading the direction manual for landing the plane. That’s right. We had to do a little loop-de-loop around the southern tip of San Cristóbal in order to line up with the runway. I couldn’t wait to get off the plane and run away. You’ll be happy to hear we landed with ease and I jumped off that plane pretty quickly, well, not before I took a picture of all the gauges.
It’s great to be home on San Cristóbal! We have the whole weekend to do whatever because the new classes start on Monday. I’m taking a plant class (maybe endemic species? I’m not really sure). It will be my last class here in the Galapagos, which is sad for me because I will truly miss everything here, including my easy lifestyle (did I mention I usually don’t have hot water showers? Great wake-up after an early morning run). I’m currently halfway through my trip here (NOOOOO…I want to stay!).
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| My Halloween costume: a naturalist guide con vino |
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| For Kristy: Daniel, Jorge, and Jairo :-) |
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