la alba al junco

This morning we woke up at 4:45am to go to the highlands to watch la alba - the sunrise - at El junco which is the fresh water lagoon on San Cristobal. My host father woke up early with us to get us the taxi which was so awesome of him. Everyone met up outside my house to disembark and the most random people showed up from our group. It was awesome - I just had this thought that that would be a cool idea and made an announcement and it turned out that a handful of people were up for it. I stayed up til 2ish writing my 10 pager (how wonderful it is to be slammed with work the last few days in the Galapagos) which I guess I'll be finishing today and studying for my final. Then I went home, took a catnap and waited around for whoever to show up. Right before we took off, Elektra's mom wandered around the corner in the dark saying "Can I come?" ...that was pretty cute. Then we drove around for stragglers and picked up Aubrey and then took off towards El junco.
I love driving in the highlands at night. We're on virtually uninhabited islands, 400 miles away from the mainland, so you can only imagine what the stars look like. And I'm really going to miss riding in the back of a truck to get to wherever you can't walk to. From the distance you could see the sun starting to rise. We were pretty excited... As we got closer, though, it started getting really cloudy and by the time we got there we were pretty much standing inside of a cloud. Hahaha. Figures. We walked around for a bit, went to the water, Scott fell in, took some pictures, and headed back home. The ride back was even prettier, because you can see different high points of the island, the sun was still rising and it was still kind of cool out (80ish...) and you get a view of the whole coastal town. Bueno.

The case of the pollo

So I just got back from amazing vacaciones which I will update on ASAP !!
But here is a little story until then.

Breakfast this morning with my host father, 'Tonyo' (aka Antonio) as follows:

[english translation]


A: Do you have a chicken?
Me: Not that I'm aware of.
A: Are you sure? There was a chicken in your room for like 4 or 5 days.
Me: Like... a dead one?
A: No, it was alive. It was pretty skinny when I found it.
Me: Seriously?
A: Yes. We were just wondering if it was yours, or if you thought it was yours. The neighbor a couple houses down said that she was missing a chicken.
(This confuses me. How could the neighbor possibly know that she is missing a chicken? They spend their days roaming the streets. No coops.)
Me: Well, it wasn't my chicken. How do you think it got there?
A: We have no idea! Maybe you shut your door without realizing there was a chicken in there?
Me: Tonyo, I would definitely be aware of a chicken in my bedroom before closing the door.
A: I just don't know. Genesis heard something from your room, and when I opened the door, the chicken shot right out of there, skinny and about to die. There were feathers all over the place!
Me: ......................................

Isabela

We went to Isla Isabela last week. So nice to be on a different island! Isabela is the largest island in the archipelago and it's practically uninhabited compared to the other inhabited islands. Population is around 2000 I think.

Highlights include:

The bars! We walked along some little villagey roads alongside the beach and the houses looked like everyone was sleeping. We randomly walked into someone's backyard and BAM! Sweeeet outdoor bar alongside the beach complete with amazing view of the milky way and latin songs that I can actually sing to. Ahh! Awesome! Being completely broke at the time, I did what any respectable Boston girl would do and brought my own box of wine in my purse and refilled my glass throughout the evening...

The mangroves! They are a shrub (I guess)... They grow in coastal areas and some species live in the water in the littoral zone and act as nurseries for fish, shrimp, and seahorses. We snorkeled there a few times and the view was so beautiful with a view of the volcanos/highlands in the distance, the sunlight reflecting off the water and making the clouds look pretty (it rained for the first time in three months when we arrived in Isabela. Really pretty clouds were streaking the sky) We did transects there. I saw an octopus. Mangrove highlight.

The highlands! Highlands are my favorite because they remind me of the jungle and seeing banana trees as part of your everyday life makes me feel at peace with the world. Really thick vegetation, lots more finches, I can dig it. We did a deisel hike through the highlands, saw a crater that is the 2nd largest volcano crater in the world, and then kept on hiking through some lava flows and then reached a point that was so incredible - we could see a few other islands from this point and the ocean was to our left and vegetation growing through the lava flow to our right. This is the picture where I'm laying down on the rocks.

There's also the wall of tears. Isabela was one of the islands that housed prisoners. They really didn't have much for them to do, so they spent some time building this absolutely pointless wall made from the heavy basalt volcanic rocks. Many of them died because they weren't really given water or food or any kind of reasonable/healthy labor hours.



Tomorrow is Easter. This past week, with Holy Thursday/Good Friday/ Easter sunday is called La semana de santa. People sing outside in their backyards, there was some kind of solemn parade last night that was really emotional for the locals, and all day yesterday (Friday) the Catholics fasted. It's great being here, but tomorrow I'm def going to be thinking of Easter goodness including but not limited to:

• Seeing my family!!!!
• Auntie Jackie's asparagus and cheese
• Auntie Jackie's layer salad
• Wrights desserts AND Samantha's desserts
• Missing a family holiday where I can finally legally drink! wtf!
• Roooooasted lamb
• Bursting at the seams with easter food and taking a nap.

mmmm. miss you guys.

<3

6 weeks?!

A phrase that has dawned on everyone in our group this past week. We're going to go nuts... We have a few days left of our current modules (I am now on Intro to Marine Life) and then we are going to Isabela for a week and return with a 5 day holiday and then we will be touring a few of the islands. After that, we only have a couple weeks left! I'm so freaked out!

In other news, my dreds started molding, so I cut probably a foot of hair off. It was a liberating feeling. You couldn't even tell that I had dreads in the first place and they are itchy and stinky. It was something that I've always wanted to do, and having short hair was something I've always wanted to try and it's soo great having short hair in a hot place :)

For our marine class, we have been going snorkeling in a bunch of cool areas. Our professor was the director of research at the Charles Darwin Research Center for years before he started regularly teaching so we have got the in as far as going to prohibited parts of the islands goes. He also has terrible communication skills and he is deaf, which makes for interesting field trips, as he constantly ignores our questions - "Gunter, what are we doing. Where are we going. Earth to Gunter." Dos dias pasado, we went to a place that hasn't even been officially named yet, barely any traffic going through this place. I felt like an explorer. We were surveying the area and then writing proposals on whether or not the center should allow the area to be a tourist spot. So we hiked around, went snorkeling, took some notes... I vote no for tourism. For a few reasons, but most importantly that it's a nesting area for endangered tortugas marinas.

Here are a few creeper shots from Scott:

<-- picked the worst shoes to go hiking in! here's brett and i getting back on the boat - literally had no where to dock to so we all jumped off brittle ah-ah lava and onto the boat.

This next picture is the ohwee ohwee lava flow - i have no idea if that's even how you pronounce it. basically, the ah ah lava is brittle and sharp, and named after the ah ah lava in Hawaii (the indigineous Hawaiians would walk over the rock barefoot and go "ah! ah! ah!"

The other kind of lava is smoother and you can see the flows better. This one had less gas bubbles trapped inside as it was cooling down. Millions of years ago.

Here's where we first landed, up behind me is the turtle nesting area and we snorkeled over by the huge rock on the left. It was a beautiful place and it's amazing to think that no one ever goes there. The snorkeling was cool because there were so many schools of fish and they were a lot bigger than I've ever seen and a lot of them were grazing. This marine class has really opened up a new world... A lot of people think half the experience of the Galapagos is being underwater. Snorkeling is so relaxing - the water is pretty warm and you just float there with your snorkel and chill in Galapaguenan goodness. There is only one significant coral reef I think, but there is brightly colored algae that covers the rocks that is very beautiful. My new favorite spot is a 20 minute walk down the street from the uni which is a beautiful snorkeling area with huge rocks and caves and crazy fish. I really want to see a sea horse and a frog fish before I leave. Frog fish look like dead tufts of seaweed floating above the ocean floor but all the little tufts are actually their fins. I've been watching Blue Planet - just like Planet Earth (also narrated by d. attenborough <3) align="left">

I wrote a bunch more but apparently it got deleted - just me blah blahing about snorkeling and sea life. Oh well. Chau guys ! :)

feliz dia de san patricio

hola!

it came to my attention yesterday morning at breakfast with antonio, my host father...
Ecuador doesn't celebrate st. pattys! Our group collectively decided to inform everyone about this important holiday, fighting our hardest through the language barrier.
I think that my translation yesterday sounded something like this:
"It is a very important day for us. For good luck we wear green and drink a lot of beers. It has a small green man who is magic and likes plants with four flowers. Understand? Very important."
Hopefully he got the jist of it.

By the end of the night we had drank all the servesas the bar had, we made all of our Ecuadorian friends go home to change into green and come back, two girls were throwing all their st. patty's day fun up in the street and one of them was eventually carried home by the dive instructor (all the skeevi ecuadorians crowding around).
and i proposed to carlos, again. he said no, again. we're cool though.
aaand we played traditional american college student drinking games by the ocean. Ever heard of 21? that's a good one.

and the night ended successfully around 5am with me hammocking peacefully outside my bedroom. good times had by all. :)

french toast

For breakfast one day, my roommate Amanda and I made french toast and homefries for our homestay family.

Our family was really excited that we wanted to spend more time with them and to try American food! One day I asked them if they liked American food and they said "Oh yes, we love french fries and hamburgers". Sigh. That is what I figured they thought American food was like, and I guess that is what our country projects. What food is really American, anyway?
My host mother hovered over us with a little notebook/recipe book and wrote down every little thing that we did (even the mistakes) - it was so cute. I def want to get some of her recipes as well.
So we put everything out in platters so people could help themselves and they just kind of blinked and smiled at us, expectantly and hungrily. Haha. Yeah. In Ecuador, as I'm sure with many south american countries, you get served with your plate already full. So we served them, realized we forgot the juice, and my host sister hated everything, and my host mother hasn't used the maple syrup since. And then we played Bingo - All in all a very successful Sunday morning.

homesick

dear mom&dad,

if you really, truly love me, you would send me a care package including but not limited to:
gatorade packets of the lemon-lime variety, nutella, samoa cookies, those fettuccini alfredo packets, and the little lunchable size things of motts regularly sweetened applesauce (non cinnamon), every episode of the l word and ocean girl, and a digestive tract cleanser. and a kitten.

love and miss,
your daughter, Alex

great week :)

It was great to show someone that I love from home what my life has been like here...




We did a whole bunch!

• Lookout
• El progresso which is some dead beat town and I'm not exactly sure why it's tourist area
• La soledad for the view and we ate pumarosas :)
• El junco for the glacier lake
• La galapaguera for the giant land tortoises
• Puerto chino and played frisbee and body surfed and got attacked by flies and swam out to the boobies
• La loberia and swam with the giant sea turtles
• Corola and swam with the smaller sea turtles
• Tijeretas
• Leon dormido and snorkeled with the sharks again (sorry mom...)
• Isla lobos and swam with baby lobos
• Puerto grande

I told Nathan to delete all his pictures off his camera because I thought they had uploaded to my computer. I checked today and I was wrong... whoops. This was after the "are you positive i can delete them off my camera. 'yessss i'm positive'" conversation. Hopefully he will get that message, but if it were me I would have deleted them by now to clear for Chile. I'm a terrible girlfriend...

Nathan!

Nathan came yesterday! :) :)

It is so surreal seeing him here in the Galapagos. I could barely kiss him, I had to keep pushing him away to make sure it was him and not some typical Ecuadorian homeboy. Ahhh! He's here!!

I saw him right when he got off the plane - for one thing, the airports in the islands have to walls. And another - he's so white he was blinding everyone. so cute.

Enough of my gushing - we got here and he immediately (and obviously) befriended everyone in the program and even some islanders. I have to go to my class because it is for my major and missing one class is like missing two weeks of class at Emmanuel. Anyway, i got out of class and walked across the street to the beach and Nate is playing frisbee with some Ecuadorians. So we all got a game of ultimate frisbee (Galapagos style in terms of the rules - "nuestra!") and played until the sun set. We went to dinner and I made him try ceviche - a weird sounding yet delicious 'soup' - it is served cold, usually with seafood and mixed with fresh veggies and served with banana chips. mmm. Then we drank with the locals on the pier and went to one of two bars here on the islands. Ahh :) A fun first day.

The pirates came and called it hell

Buenas.
Much to update on.

I left you at carnival - popular 4 day celebration before lent begins and it's celebrated differently around the world. In the Galapagos, people pelt passersby with eggs, water guns, paint, shaving cream, etc.

I wasn't able to participate too much in the celebrations because during the prime of them we had class. Class ends a week early but it's more intense during the weeks we do have it. I did manage, however, to be attacked with lipstick by the locals when I walked outside for a break during class.

... whammy! After I got most of it off.

The professor that I have now for evolution is actually the codirector of GAIAS and we have to be on our best behavior and work our very hardest. It's the evolution section - the one that I wanted the most! - and of course, it totally sucks. All math. Horribly thick accent, I would probably get more out of it if he just taught in spanish. Nothing interesting, nothing I will retain. To make up for that letdown, I've been doing my own reading and research, which has been my absolute favorite thing to do. Evolution is crazy and complicated and incredibly disorganized. It's crazy to think that we all just as easily could have not existed. And, obviously, I couldn't be in a more perfect environment.

So we went on a field trip on Saturday around San Cristobal.

First we went to Leon Dormido ('sleeping lion'), or Kicker Rock as it's called in english. It's these two giant rocks that are a ways off the coast of the island. As you know, the islands were formed by volcanos, and when that happens, there is a lot of pressure. So rocks jutting off from the main island are like little offchutes of all that pressure. Pretty bright red algae covers the rocks and there are lots of tropical fish, starfish, and... *gulp*... sharks. I swam with sharks! The visibility at Leon Dormido was terrible so we couldn't see that far below us, which makes it a little scary. Sharks are my number one fear and I think that's pretty rational. Sharks kill things all the time. They have scary sharp teeth. They are bigger than me. ...Rational. So when I jumped in the water and checked out the big blue below my flippers, seeing the silouhette of sharks lurking a couple meters below me freaked me out a bit. A lot a bit. It's crazy being scared in the water - being a land creature, you aren't in your element at all and there really is nowhere you can go if something comes after you. I don't really remember being scared like that at home. So I tried exploring for sharks a bit but pretty much stuck to the algae and the fish. Call me a baby, but I'm not worried about it. I choose life.

Then we went to Punta Pitt for a hike. It's still part of San Cristobal. This is where the pirates landed, and upon looking at all the semi-desert plantlife - prickly thorns, cactuses, black serpent lizards (marine iguanas), and giant black basalt rocks - called the Galapagos 'hell on earth'. If only they had spent some time looking around, right?

The photo to the left is right when you get off the beach. Those rocks are all volcanic ash and very easily eroded. We wented hiking for a while and we came to the photo on your left. I can't just over the top and around the corner of that area is the lush jungle-like parts like El Junco with the miconia bushes and the banana and coconut trees. We saw some red footed boobies and Nazca boobies.

Boobies and sex - Now, I bet you are wondering what's the difference between red footed boobies and blue footed boobies and Nazca boobies. That would be sexual selection and siblicide.

Blue footed boobies use their brightly colored blue feet to show off to potential mates (thus their bobo dance). The brightness of the blue are indicators of health, and women like to picky the really healthy ones to mate with.

Red footed boobies are also sexually selective, but they evolved a little differently on different islands and instead of using brightly colored feet, they use markings on their faces. So they have normal, reddish orange feet but they are still of the booby genus.

Nazca boobies aren't so much sexually selective as they are brutal. They participate in obligate siblicide, and I'll explain that from the beginning.Mom lays 2 eggs, one big & one small. Eggs hatch several days apart, larger one first. Older, bigger chick pushes younger sibling outside of nest under the supervision of Mom. Younger chick peeps for mom's attention and gets eaten by frigate bird/mockingbird/just sits there dying while Mom ignores. Crazy right? The moms let that happen because they would be exerting themselves so much trying to care for 2 chicks rather than one and they wouldn't be able to participate in the next reproductive season. And they favor long term reproductive success.

Thanks for letting me geek out!

Last place we went to was isla lobos, where we snorkeled and played with sea lions. They literally played with you! They blow bubbles in your face, swim around you, there are pretty fish, I got knocked into a large rock and now have the bruise the size of a modest watermelon on my upper thigh, there was a sizeable shark so we all had to band together..... good times.

La vida

A few instances of the everyday life on the island.


Pilsener -


Pilsener is the only beer in Ecuador. I'm almost kidding. There's another beer called Club, (pronounced Clooooob, it was the most popular beer tenish years ago) and another called brama or something, which is popular in a few south american countries. Well anyway, it's a pale wheat ale and in the beginning, I was in disbelief that I would only be drinking one type of beer for 5 months, but it's grown on me for sure. Aaannnd, it's only $2.50 for 24oz of Pilsener! Wahhooo for my budget! Also, the style of Ecuadorian drinking is a lot more communal than that of the states. People buy a couple of beers at a time and a few people have glasses. The glasses and beers both get passed around and people share and talk and the beer stays cold (no stale, warm last sips of beer) and there's no conflict over what kind of beer to share because there is only one kind at the bars. That's definitely something I want to do at home with my friends :)

Mopeds -

Mopeds are big here on the island, as they should be. One interesting thing about mopeds is that entire families ride them at once, include infants and pets. I've seen a moped with parents a small child, an infant, and a puppy mopedding around the island. If mopedding was a verb. I actually will work on getting a picture of that because I'm sure that I'll never see it again once I leave.

American mothers would be shitting their pants realizing what kind of child saftey exists in vehicles here... (which is none) Frequently you will see pick up trucks with the kids horsing around in the back, suburbans with kids jumping around, no seatbelts, mothers holding infants in the front seat, etc etc etc. But here, there is no car insurance. So, when people get into accidents, they are immediately incarcerated until they can prove that they can pay for the damage of the accident. So, drivers may seem crazy, but there is a lot of beeping going on in the streets of the mainland because everyone needs to let each other know what they are doing and what's going on. Also, interesting fact... if someone is pulled over on a bridge, you cannot pass them for any reason. If their car is broken down, you have to wait until they get it towed. I have nightmares that I'm driving in Ecuador and I get into an accident and then I just have to chill in jail until my parents realize I should have been home already.



Taxis -

Chevorlet is doing a project on the islands - they've provided a bunch of white trucks to all the inhabited islands and we basically can go anywhere we want around town for a dollar, and then to the highlands for 15 bucks. Sweet deal. I don't remember exactly what the promotion was for, but surely it has to do with the environment and conserving all the endemic species.

We all ride in the back of the pick ups, mainly because it's a few thousand degrees in the equatorial sun and the breeze keeps us alive. But also because it's awesome and fun and absolutely illegal in America. Riding through the highlands in the back of a pick up is one of my favorite things to do here. The vegetation zones change from semi-arid to straight up jungle complete with banana trees, coffee trees, avocado trees, guayabana trees...

Passing people in the street -
Married men/bachelor men/especially teenaged young men give you a few times over and say "holaaa mamacita, te quiero, como te llamas, you're sexxyyyy"
But everyone else just smiles and says hola, little kids say "Hi How Are You" in English and then giggle and run away.
Some people are annoyed by all the gringos in town but most of them are used to it.

Politics

Every Friday and Saturday there have been political rallies, all inhabited islands have to elect a governer. This means that every friday and saturday, right outside my house, there have been parties going on until say, 4 or 5 in the morning. I mean, hey, I like to party. I like latin music. I can get my groove on. It's just that they pick a song - one song - to be their campaign song, usually a popular song from 8 years ago that they change the lyrics to - and then they play this song on repeat from about 9 at night to 4 in the morning. Uhhhmmmm... So anyway, the governer now is named Zapata and hearsay tells me he got caught shark finning this past year, a highly illegal and environmentally destructive activity that will end up hurting the tourism industry in the Galapagos, an industry which is their main source of income. And he wants to full on populate San Cristobal, which will destroy everything. Everyone educated wants to light Zapata on fire and throw him into a barrel of Amazonian gasoline, but the truth of the matter is that many people on the islands are not educated and he will likely be reelected. For now, we will just have to enjoy the free cana liquor he passes out at the rallies...

I have bad news, and then good news and bad news again

Let me tell you about my life since Wednesday. Keeping in mind that this is finals week, so I have a field report, 2 research papers, a final exam and a presentation over the course over the next two days. Excellent.

BAD NEWS - I woke up, wolfed down breakfast and ran to school so that I wouldn't be late for the field trip. We were learning data collection techniques - plant cover - interesting stuff like that - in the boiling equatorial sun. I was nauseuous but didn't want to be a baby because *gulp* my newfound girl crush decided to come on the field trip with us because *swoon* she's studying botany... So not only did I hustle getting my stuff done (yeah right... when she wasn't looking I was laying in the shade of the miconia bushes we were supposed to be examining) but when we biked back I hauled ass up this steep hill that was in the beginning of our ride (immediately collapsing at the top of the hill, exhausted and wanting to barf and being completely winded for the rest of the way back... Becky had a pretty good laugh at that). Then we got back to the uni and I felt like I was on the verge of spontaneous combustion so I jumped in the water. Didn't cool me down, still felt nauseous, but girlcrush was taking a swim too so I played it cool. Then we walked a shadeless walk to grab some lunch, but as I was on fire and feeling nauseous, I just had a couple glasses of juice and headed home for a quick siesta before I began etching away at the mountains of work I had in store for the evening. I tried sleeping for an hour or so, but I decided that it must be about 200 degrees outside so I took a cold shower and went back to lay down but couldn't fall asleep.
Then it happend. And it happend for the next 36 hours. I'll spare you the details, to get an idea, I want you to remember the last time you got food poisoning and now I want you to multiply that by Ecuador.
My host mother was so worried that she checked on me every hour bringing me tea and crackers and food that just made me sick looking at, but she was really sweet the whole time. She just kept getting flustered and wanting to bring me to the hospital but I figured an Ecuadorian hospital might be a bit counterproductive. Then (awww) the little girl, Genesis, went to the store and got me an apple gatorade (1. - yeah, apple gatorade, weird. 2. in a glass bottle - why ecuadorians put their sports drinks in glass bottles i will never understand) which I drank a sip of and no sooner did she walk down the stairs but I accidentally smashed it on the floor. I tried cleaning THAT up but I couldn't sit up so I went back to sleep. When I woke up, there was broken glass and cockroaches all over my floor! Talk about a nightmare. So I took another cold shower and fell asleep on the floor of my balcony because it was colder outside, a terrible desicion from which I still have a stiff neck.
To top it off, my awesome professor wasn't accepting late field reports and it was due in the morning. So I walked back to the uni to get some work done. I threw up in the bathroom when I got there and decided it wasn't a good idea. I walked home. On my walk back, I took a different route that I thought was shorter (not always a smart experiment) and walked by a yard with a bunch of realllly adorable husky puppies. mmm.
TIME FOR THE GOOD NEWS : So on Thursday, I woke up and felt better. I couldn't keep anything down, but I didn't feel nauseous and I could walk around and stuff. I went downstairs to sit with my family while they ate and to say thanks for taking care of me and stuff. And in my living room was none other than one of those husky puppies. So I thought about that.
Thoughts:
" walked by someones yard and there were four husky puppies - 4 is my favorite number and husky puppies are my favorite puppy - SO when i wake up this morning and find a husky puppy in my living room, it's God's way of saying.... 'I'm sorry that you shit your pants and vomited all night and you had cockroaches all over your floor, here's a husky puppy' "

Genesis put an orange tee shirt on him (huskies must get pretty cold here in the Galapagos) and named him LouLou.

AND AGAIN FOR THE BAD NEWS: stupid owner came to get the puppy while i was at school.

Guitos

Hola amigos.

We saw the galapagos tortoises. weee!

We went on a Friday, which was awesome, because they have feeding days on M/W/F. The rest of the days, they fend for themselves for food, so that they learn to find their own resources and not be totally dependent on the Galapaguera volunteers. The above picture is of two turtles fighting over some leaves. Awww. They can get pretty aggressive. After I took this picture they were rockin each others shells for a while.

There is this tree called 'manzanillo' on the islands (poison apple tree) - it's indigenous to the Galapagos and it's incredibly poisonous - you pretty much get the worst hives of your life all over your body. Someone from our program got it pretty bad and almost had to go home... kind of scary because they are unmarked and everywhere -but they don't take them down because 1. they are endemic and 2. they provide food & habitat for other endemic species.

So the Galapaguera is absolutely covered in manzanillos because thats what the tortugos eat! We were dodging poison left and right.

There is a little cage for the baby tortugitos that they live in all the time. They are so tiny! They need a pretty tight cage though because rats (invasive species!) are eating them at night. Humans first brought rats over in the 1800s and they have proceeded to decrease populations of everything cool. People inadvertantly ruin everything! gah.

Highlands trip!

Heinke, my botany professor, has been pushing her luck. She has that whole, I'm from Germany/I don't shave my pits/I have the coolest jewelry you've ever seen thing going for her, but she has been too much from the beginning. I am sitting here in the Galapagos islands doing more work over the course of three days than I ever care to in a semester. To top it off, everyone failed her quiz and she complained to administration that we were stupid. Sorry, Heinke. But not really. Because your lectures suck.

So instead of celebrating Darwin's 200th birthday with all of San Cristobal, we were hiking in the highlands and doing an educational field trip examining plants or whatever. If it weren't probably the coolest thing that I've done so far on this island, I would have thrown her off the top of the volcano and named all the vegetation zones that she would have been rollin on through... Not really though! She is actually kind of cool and hardcore, which I appreciate. I would just rather have her as my friend than as my professor.

On to the amazing stuff!

So we went on a bus and headed on up to El junco near the top of the volcano. I don't know if I've ever mentioned this before, but riding on a bus up a volcano is probably the most fun, dangerous, and motion-sickness inducing experience ever. It's like being on a roller coaster that someone has been decapitated on before. We did it a lot in Quito and I felt mostly like I was going to die, or that we would get stuck in the mud, or we would just rock too much to the right and tumble on down the volcano and explode at the bottom. On the way there, the vegetation changed completely.

In town, where I live, is very close to a beach and it is pretty populated. The zones that I live in are the littoral (coastal) zones and the arid zone which is a bit higher up. So, the vegetation is mostly low trees, cactuses, stuff like that. But when you travel higher, there are different moisture/percipitation levels and that paired with the elevation and that equals amazing jungle like environment complete with lagoons and waterfalls and tall trees and stuff. And it is away from civilization. The Charles Darwin Foundation is doing research scattered all over the place - due to habitat destruction, introduced/invasive species, and the overexploitation of resources, there are species here that are reaching critically low population levels and they do what they can to lessen the blow of human disturbance. There are nurseries all over the place for indigenous plant species so that they can repopulate the area. Here is a picture of the nurseries. Aww.

The huge problem on the Galapagos is the mora, or the blackberry. It is an invasive specie, which means that it spreads quickly on its own and outcompetes the native and endemic species for resources. Volunteers have been trying to eradicate the mora in certain areas, all done by hand. They are starting a sustainable program this October that eradicates the mora and makes marmalade out of the berries at the same time to sell to tourists. Las moras son muy ricas :) mmmm. We ate them throughout our hike. Speaking of eating delicious island fruit, in April and May I am going hiking in the highlands every day because that's fruit season! There are going to be Galapagos guayabas (I have to take a picture of this fruit, so delicious yet so, so weird) and naranjas and bananas and passionfruits mmm. We can just pick them off the trees as we walk. Below is a banana tree and that weird dark red thing is it's flower! It's one of the only plant species whose fruits grow up from it's flower. :) P.S. Bananas are not indigenous to the Galapagos!

So after walking around for a little bit we went back in the bus to the tippity top area to see the powerplant windmills. Yeah! Ecuadorians for alternative energy! It's awesome. There are three windmills now, they are strategically placed on a certain point (there was another windier spot but they were unable to put them there because they would disrupt the frigate bird nests). They are 51 meters high (oooooo) and it provides 40% of the energy for San Cristobal (aaahhhh).

Here are Becky and I being ridiculous near the windmills. Sorry I don't have a picture of those. They look like regular alternative energy windmills.

THEN we went to el junco. I am just going to copy and paste a chunk from my field report and tell you about that -

El junco is a fresh lake in the highlands of San Cristobal and is the only naturally formed fresh water area on all of the Galapagos Islands. This lake is evidence that there were once glaciers on San Cristobal. There was debate on whether or not the lake was retrieving water from the ocean, but through a mold demonstration, researchers were able to prove that it does not. El junco always has fresh water, even during serious droughts. This may be because the area has a lot of moisture and water is constantly cycling via evaporation and precipitation.
Recently, the introduced fish species telapia was found in the lake, numbering at about 40,000. The fish, most popularly raised through aquaculture, is an omnivore usually fed only algae. However, in El junco, the telapia were feeding off of the crustaceans that were living in the lake and it was decided that they should be eradicated. So, researchers extracted a poison from the roots of barbascos, a tree found in the Amazon. Because they wanted to leave the crustaceans unharmed, researchers tested the crustacean’s reactions to the poison over a three month period. They decided that the barbasco poison harmed only the fish in the lake, and were able to remove the species.
The area surrounding the lake was once covered by the invasive blackberry species that have recently been removed by hand by volunteers. Also, there are plots located in the area with patches of miconia in order to test how feasible it would be to grow the native miconia. There needs to be more species richness so that invaders do not take over the area.
From this view, we were able to see a couple of greenhouses in the lower vegetation zones. Greenhouses are reducing the amount of insects, are able to grow food all year round, and in turn lessening the Galapagueñan dependency on mainland shipments of tomatoes and other staples. There are eleven greenhouses on Santa Cruz, two on Floreana, and two on San Cristobal with three on the way.

Then we went to a campground which was a really neat set up, but it was too dark out by that time to take any cool pictures. We had a campfire and talked about the ghost stories and legends of san cristobal. Heinke (my professor) and her partner John shared with us some of their own really freaky ghost stories. She believes in ghosts! I think that's so weird and really cool at the same time because she is a scientist. To be spiritual and to be scientific is a happy medium. A few of us wandered away from the campfire and checked out the stars. This is one of the things I was so excited for! I am away from the mainland, away from society and pop culture and tall buildings with light pollution - and here are the stars, the brightest and clearest I have ever seen them. All the constellations are different - I can see all of Orien and I have to really look for the Big Dipper but the rest are pretty much different. We are going to try to learn them while we are here. We laid down in the grass for a good while and Scott led us through a guided meditation, which always makes me wish that my entire life was one giant guided meditation. It was an amazing day!

Happy Darwin's 200th Birthday!

It was two days ago, but that doesn't stop the Galapaguenos from partying for an entire week.

Here are some fun facts about Charlie Darwin, besides that he is the god of my individualized major:

• He beleived that God had something to do with evolution.
• He was organized and scientific about everything, he even wrote a pros and cons list of getting married before he proposed to his wife (who was, by the way, his cousin)
• Aaaaand (dun dun dun) he believed that the Galapagos islands were foul and ugly and he was repulsed by the animals and vegetation.

So screw you, Charles Darwin, but happy birthday and thanks for the theory!

The celebrations thus far have been pretty cute. My host father, actually, dressed up as Charles Darwin and did a little skit in front of the whole island. He wore a white beard made of cotton balls and wore a peach cap to represent a bald head. Then pretended to come to an island and investigate a plant. There have been competitions for kayaking, canoeing, swimming, Queen Galapagos, stuff like that all day. There was a little parade around town and everything. I wasn't able to see a lot of the festivities because I have two research papers, a presentation, a field report, and an exam due on Friday. (That's right, Mom. You will be happy to know that I am in fact in school rather than a 4 and a half month vacation.)

Valentine's day is definitely not the hallmark holiday that it is in the United States. The locals say they like to go out to dinner and dance or whatever but they don't make a big deal about it. In the morning we had flowers on the table and chocolates and my host parents were wearing all red, which was adorable. Little paper red hearts are hanging from the trees around town. It's so cute! Other than that, though, there weren't many traces of el dia de San Valentin. Which is good, because Valentine's day in the United States is a useless holiday except for being my dad's valentine, candy hearts with the words, chocolate sales a few days afterwards, and of course, candy underwear.

hey y'all, i'm an islander now

Well guys, I have to be honest, I probably will never see you again. I miss you all so much, but the only way I'm leaving the Galapagos is floating across the ocean back to you in a coffin. Or whenever my visa runs out. Whichever comes first.

My host family is, for the Ecuadorian culture, pretty unconventional. Doris and Antonio, my host parents, are living together in sin, as my mom likes to say. (Antonio is divorced, and they haven't married.) I also have a host sister, her name is Genesis, she is adopted and she is 6, and I will probably keep her around because every morning when I roll out of bed with an afro of unneccessarily frizzy hair and an awkward, uneven sunburn she smiles at me and tells me that I am beautiful. She is beautiful, actually. I will post pictures of my host family soon. I think Genesis may be sick, though (I don't know if I've mentioned this... but around 85 % of the population here on the Galapagos has HIV). I think that she is sick because she has been traveling back and forth to Guayaquil, where there is better medical facilities, and also she is pale, probably from staying indoors a lot. A lot of the population is infected, but so far nothing has been discussed in the household and I am not about to ask.

Antonio has a bunch of little jobs, one of which I am convinced is a babysitter. Either that or children flock to him and spend their siestas playing with his big belly and watching TV in their tiny living room. Even infants find their way to Antonio. So yeah, he must be a babysitter.

Doris is an English teacher (at first I thought - score! But she makes me speak Spanish all the time) and she also runs a hostel and I am staying there with a girl from my program. I guess there will be people running in and out all the time. But I have to say, I am so happy to be rooming with Amanda! It was a lonely thought thinking I would be in this host family situation by myself. She isn't from my circle of friends here but she is positive, active, and really fun to be around. She is blonde, so she gets a lot of attention from Ecuadorians. She walks by and they just look at her and say "ooooo, mira, rubia!" (oooh look, blonde girl). She is 20 and engaged! Ahh! She got engaged when she was 18. Clearly, she knows what she wants. Haaha. Her fiancee and mother are actually coming to visit around the same time as Nathan.

Oh I didn't tell you! Nathan is visiting!! Aaahhh :) :) He has been working extra hard in Boston and he is going to come see me before he does his study abroad semester in Chile. And hopefully, I will be able to visit him after I finish up in the Galaps:) It will definitely break up this not-seeing-each-other for 7 months ordeal and also, I reaaaallly wanna go and see Chile. And Peru. But there is a good chance that I will be traveling alone so Peru probably isn't in the cards.

ANYWAY, the living quarters are humble ones and that's fine with me. My other friends have pretty sweet setups and their own huge rooms and bathrooms and all that, but I'm happier this way. I never had that much personal space to begin with and I have come to realize that when I have too much space to my own I don't really know what to do with it. Not to mention, wealty people like to put introduced plant species in their gardens that attract roachesPlus, I have a hammocking area! SCORE! The only downside to living with a less wealthy family, though, is the food. On the first day, I told Antonio that I was a vegetarian, so I had refried KFC chicken with french fries and mayonaisse for lunch. The family is on a diet, I guess, so we had french fries and chicken hotdogs for breakfast. Yeah, I dunno about this Ecuadorian food. The ketchup isn't even real ketchup. Kim, you would probably hate it here for that reason. Everything is fried with white rice. And frankly, I'm getting a bit fat! So I've been trying to stay active and cut out the ice cream and beer. Emphasis on trying.

Anyway, the food might be the worst idea Ecuador has ever had, second to drilling in the Amazon of course, but the biodiversity and beautiful environment certainly makes up for it. This is the most beautiful place that I will ever spend time in, poverty, HIV, refried KFC and all.

the galaps

well i don't have any pictures to post yet, but believe me when i tell you that i am living in paradise for the next three months. i may have shit out all my digestive organs by the time i return home to massachusetts, but guaranteed i will feel extremely relaxed and content about it.

... the ecuadorian illness got worse in that i was up until 6am the other night with wrenching stomach pains and explosive you know whats. i was literally outside of the bathroom door until 5:45am talking to nathan on my computer (thanks for staying up with me btw <3) while running back and forth to the toilet.

anyway, the point is, i got here and swam with sea lions, chilled with marine iguanas and crabbes, got dangerously close to a pelican, saw my first sunset in the galapagos, found out that sea kayaking is 5 bucks ALL DAY, and to top it all off i bought a hammock in otavalo and i'm going to use it at my homestay house todos los dias que paso aqui.

i definitely miss my parents, my family, my friends, my cats, my spongy pillow and memory foam, and american food a LOT (maybe my boyfriend too, a little bit) so if they could all come here life would be perfect. but i think, for the next three months, the galapagos islands will just have to do...

who woulda thunk

...that it would be so cold in Ecuador?

WARNING! my dad just told me that if I keep talking the way that I do, no one is going to want to come to Ecuador! But this trip that we came back from was so awful that it was comical. So proceed at your own risk of not wanting any of the following things to happen to you:

So I just got back from a Riobamba/Cotopaxi trip.

That picture is of Cotopaxi, an active volcano south of Quito. I climbed that.... Yeah.

(Don't be too impressed by that picture - I didn't actually summit. That takes weeks of training and also plenty of time to acclimate to at least Quito's altitude)
Cotopaxi... it's pretty high. 5,000 meters. Planes fly lower than that! The terrible thing about climbing Cotopaxi was... Oh wait. There were about a hundred terrible things about climbing Cotopaxi! Let's start at the beginning.

We JUST got back from the Amazon. I really didn't want to leave the jungle, it was the most amazing time ever, and I am considering going back for a few weeks instead of class. The point is though, the Amazon is at low elevation (thus the malaria... malaria is only found in ecuador at low elevation) and Cotopaxi is clearly at ridiculously high elevation, so everyone on the trip had altitude sickness as soon as we got there. I had terrible indigestion and my stomach has never been that mad at me in my life.

So, it was pretty foggy and we couldn't exactly see what we were hiking. I was kind of pissed because once we would have gotten to our destination it still would have looked like we were standing in a foggy parking lot. We started climbing at the really high points, and by started climbing I mean took about 4 and a half steps, and already my heart felt like it was going to beat out of it's chest and I was absolutely winded. Here I am thinking I was in better shape, but actually, with the elevation so high and the air so thin, it's pretty common to feel like you're gonna die.

Then it started hailing. Wanna know what's not fun? Climbing Cotopaxi with indigestion when you can't see anything and your winded and then it starts hailing. And then forgetting to take a picture when you get there.
By lunch time, we were outside the resteraunt with splitting headaches and naseau, vomiting and diarreah in the bathroom. It was crazy to witness... we really were all down for the count. One of my friends with a really bad headache was given coca tea to help her acclimate. Coca tea = cocaine tea. It's supposed to be like a badass energy drink! Sweet. We saw a coca plant in the amazon. Coca-Cola is actually the only company that's allowed to export and import coca leaves. Wonder what they use it for since it's been illegal to put cocaine in soda for over 80 years...

So anyway, we were so happy to be done with Cotopaxi and just go to our hostel and pass out.

Whoops... totally forgot that we were staying at an indigenous community that night! The name of the people are the Quichua and that's all that we were told. We got there at 10pm (we were supposed to get there at 6:30, but like I said, we were all ridiculously ill so what with all the pit stops we made for peeing/puking/pooping/and the occasional snack or Pilsener, we got there pretty late. It was dark out and we couldn't see anything around us but the little light from the main building. We went inside, and it was barren and freezing and no one was around to tell us what to do. Here we are, cold, tired and hungry and thinking we were going to sleep on a wooden floor in a building with no heat. But Juan Pablo, our tour guide, reassured us (kind of) that there were beds. Becky and I immediately decided that we would be pushing our beds together and forcing Scottt to sleep with us to keep warm, as neither of us brought warm pajamas or decent sleeping bags. Scott said that that would be okay, but we didn't actually present the idea to him giving him the option to say no anyway.
And then the Quechua women arrived! They were very welcoming and excited for us to be there. Apparently, there hasn't been much tourism this year (maybe because of the economy, maybe because people keep posting bad blogs.... sorry Dad). Here is a picture I got off the internet of Quechua women and what they typically look like.

So dinner starts with lemongrass tea and a headcount of the vegetarians in the group. A promising beginning. The lemongrass tea is delicious, and I opted for the vegetarian because my stomach had been so sensitive all day and I didn't think the red meat would sit well. We just kind of waited around... jealously glancing at the meat-eaters plates and shifting uncomfortably in our seats and peering into the kitchen for glimpses of hope. The power went out a few times. Well guys, we found out that in the Quechoa community, vegetarians don't exist! So guess what else didn't exist?My dinner.
So I'm thinking to myself, WhatevernobigdealI'mreallytiredandIwannagotobed.

Becky and I head over to our sleeping area and start preparing ourselves for a chilly, chilly night. I put on my pjs and tuck them into my woolie socks. On top of that i put on my sweater, hat, gloves, and a scarf. Then, Becky and I pushed our beds together and created a seal so we wouldn't slip through the cracks. We gave Scott the 'you-don't-have-a-choice' speech and he headed on over with some extra blankets and pillows. Then disaster began to unfold:

Becky stuck her head in Scott's room.

"Connor, you're gonna be so lonely all by yourself! Come sleep with us! We'll all be warm!"

Connor figured he might as well.
So, in two twin beds pushed together, we had three pillows, four pairs of pajamas, 11 wool blankets, 2 sleeping bags, and a space heater. It was Connor, Becky, me, and Scott. I turned on my mp3 player and tried falling asleep. We tried spoon training but that was kind of awkward because most of us had gas. We tried all lying on our backs but there wasn't enough room. We tried settling down but Becky couldn't stop laughing at how awful today was and how we were so morbidly uncomfortable. I turned on my mp3player and drifted off to sleep...

....And then there was Connor. Connor took up an entire twin bed to himself, so that on the other bed there was Becky and Scott making an Alex sandwich. I woke up to Connor rolling over to Becky, saying "Whyyy didn't you discuss the project with me." "Because we're in the same class." No response from Becky. Awkward time to bring it up, Connor... We try again to sleep. We're warm. We're roasting, actually, with all this body heat and blankets and layers. I am seriously so physically uncomfortable at this point, not wanting to wake up any of my friends but having to pee/take off my sweater, scarf, gloves, and sweatshirt/finding my mp3 player somewhere underneath Scott's body, etc. Then, I am startled by an ungodly noise sounding like one of my friends *cough* CONNOR *cough* having way too much fun under the sheets. Complete with moaning. At this point, I am about to flip out on him for taking this moment out of all moments to be doing that, not to mention taking up so much coveted space on a twin bed to himself, and then I realize... he's snoring. It sounded like sex to me! And hibernating bear noises. And whistles! Miraculously, all at the same time. At one point during the night, Becky decided she couldn't take it anymore, grabbed some blankets and pillows and headed for Connor and Scott's empty room. The door was locked. She whimpered and retreated.

So we woke up at the ass crack of dawn to realize that we are indeed on an indigenous farm run by Quechua women. Woke up to cows mooing (sounds oddly like your phone vibrating) and roosters crowing repeatedly. I think overall, we collectively got a solid 10 minutes of sleep... Except for Connor. He woke up bright eyed and bushy tailed and ready to go. Here is a picture of me hating Connor:

The farm was beautiful. All run by women. Amazing. There were sheep, cows, roosters, and dogs everywhere. It's amazing that there are still people here living so simply and being so happy.

I really wish that we could have spent more time there in better moods. How cool would it be to work on a farm for a few days and help them out with everything they need to do and learn what real work is?

The day was already looking better. The sun was shining, the farm was beautiful, we were going to do a solid hike at a lower elevation and look at some nearly-endangered species of trees (polylepis <33)

I am going to update on this post about the paramo - i am writing a paper on it now - so check for the update. The paramo was my 2nd favorite place in Ecuador (at the time) and you won't be reading any complaints from me (dad).

oh god

the ecuadorian illness has finally made it's way into my digestive system. and i have a cold. OR, it's malaria because i didn't take those pills (but i will find out for sure in a couple of weeeks)

sweet. in other news, i am getting my camera today, i have a presentation and two papers and a final due by friday, and leaving for the galaps on sunday! aaahhhh!!


<3

the 'zon

So we started off at the airport and I almost had a nervous breakdown, my chest got really tight and I couldn’t breathe and I had to get away from everybody and I totally freaked out. We took a plane to Coca and that was like 35 minutes. Should have been 25 but we were flying through a thunderstorm. And then we got there and it was this little hut in the pouring rain and we went and took a bus to this hotel where it stopped raining but I was still hyperventilating. And THEN….

we were just waiting for a boat to come get us at this hotel. We were sitting outside and all of a sudden a pack of spider monkeys started crawling all over us and drank our beer and ate our bananas and oranges… They were SO cute! I want one…

So then we took a 2 hour boat ride to the edge of the Amazon, which ended up being pretty sad because right now there is an oil company drilling in the Amazon. I had no idea about that when I was in the states… I can’t believe that anyone would allow for a fucking oil company to drill in the most biodiverse place in the world. Like… reaaallly? So once we got there we went through customs where they pretty much took our yellow fever cards and made sure that we weren’t bringing any hunting weapons in the jungle. Theeennn we took a bus ride for 2 hours to another boat, which was 2 hours to the station we stayed at.

So what sucked about that is, the station can’t survive without the oil company and all the oil for the boats and busses are off that company. The oil company did a lot of logging and ruined so much of the jungle and basically totally altered the way of life of the Waorani, an indigenous group (that’s basically no longer indigenous) that lives within the jungle.

So when we got to the jungle is was nighttime. About 6:30. (In Ecuador, the sun rises at 6 and sets at 6 because it’s on the equator… and it hasn’t been as pretty as Cape Cod so far…) I couldn’t believe the noise of the jungle though when we got there, it was deafening almost with all the bugs and animals. There weren’t any lights and bugs everywhere, and here I am shitting my pants swatting unknown critters off my skin and freaking out because I didn’t take my malaria medication (because of the funky side effects). Well anyway, we got to the cafeteria of the station and it seemed like a boot camp. Don’t shower because we need to conserve water, don’t flush because we need to conserve water, don’t talk because you’ll scare the animals, don’t use soap because it hurts the environment, don’t be late for meals or else you won’t eat, aaaand so forth. So, we just did what we were told, really, and had the time of our lives. Small sacrifices for such an amazing place.

One night, Scott and I were just sitting by the river and all the lights had turned off and we most definitely heard a predator attacking something some 20 meters away. I absolutely freaked out (we couldn’t see ANYTHING and bats and giant moths and bugs of species I have never heard of were zooming by and hitting our faces) Scott was intrigued but I got pretty nervous and needed to go to bed… I mean, it’s one thing being scared of something like a spider or something you can squish, but a jaguar in pitch darkness with absolutely no one in the vicinity to hear you being ripped to shreds? Sorry if I’m being dramatic (not really) but screw that. I hauled ass back to the safety of my cabin and passed out.

So the highlights of my time in the jungle were chillin at the canopy, the flotada down the river, and the bird watch and nightlife.
We went up to the canopy a few times, mostly on structures that were attached to trees. Sometimes there were bridges. We saw monkeys and toucans and other amazing birds and animals. The canopy of a rainforest is most interesting because that’s where the most photosynthesis happens, therefore the most activity with plants and animals. MMMM! The view on top of the canopy is gorgeous. Clear skies, tree tops in every direction, small specks that are birds flying all over the place. Amazing to think of all the crazy life that is happening below. Jaguars… (I get made fun of for pronouncing them like ‘jag-wahs’ but that’s how I thought you were supposed to say it) and ant eaters and owls and scorpion spiders and tarantulas, OH MY! I kept imagining myself and then zooming all the way out, as a spec on the map that is South America. I still can’t believe that I’m here…
For the flotada we basically just wore our swim suits and a life jacket and hopped in the Amazon river and floated down for a couple hours. We saw beautiful trees, birds jumping from tree to tree,

Connor hiatus : Free haiku: My name is Connor, Alex is the coolest girl, sitting to my left.

Thank you Connor.

… and then we saw a family of giant otters! They got really scared and ran away. But in the river you can’t pee, unless you want a parasite to swim up and latch onto your urethra. Needless to say, I was grabbing my crotch as hard as I could and crying by the end of the flotada. Didn’t really feel much swimming by me, though. And there weren’t any piranhas! Usually they swim in areas dark/dead water.
We also went on a night hike, full of insects, frogs, and snakes. Our guides spoke only Spanish, but slowly and with lots of hand motions so we were able to understand most of it. I can tell that my Spanish is already improving… Anyway, Scott lent me his headlamp for the hike and he didn’t have one, which was amazing of him. He knows that I hate insects and thought I’d appreciate it. (I really, really did…) So Ramiro, our guide, called me over to show me a snake. A giant grasshopper probably the size of my fist jumped on Ramiro and I stepped back, then it jumped on my sleeve and I got really scared so I put my hands in my sleeves and the little bastard jumped up my sleeve and I TOTALLY FREAKED OUT and Ramiro grabbed my shoulders and said ‘Tranquilo’ trying to get me to calm down. Then we saw a tarantula and I started crying. I really do think I’m getting better with the insect thing, though. Haven’t slept since I saw it, but that’s beside the point, really. There were also scorpion spiders and if you shined your light into the distance, you could see the little metallic flecks of the millions of spider eyes watching you. Then, Ramiro had us all shut off our lights for a couple minutes for a concierto. It was amazing and really put things into perspective for me. All the noises of the nightlife and activity in the jungle were incredible, the frogs croaking their unique croaks and the bugs buzzing around and the owls hooting and the night birds making awkward squawks. And this is their life, at night, with no lights. I couldn’t even see my hand in front of my face. I almost freaked out and hugged Ramiro and started crying/running back to the cabin, but it was really way too cool to run away from, no matter how freaked out I was. Then I turned on my light and was much calmer about the whole thing.
We also canoed around a lake and saw amazing birds, one of which was a prehistoric bird (I forget the name) but the locals call them the stink turkeys. They’re huge and fly everywhere, they have crazy feathers and red eyes, and smell like skunks and garbage. Amazing. My sister loves birds and I’m beginning to appreciate them as well.


I really hated leaving.

Mount Wannahockalougie

We've been quoting Finding Nemo everyday... I feel right at home.

So instead of going to the Tropical Ecology class the other day, we hiked up a mountain called Ilalo. I made the decision of boycotting sunscreen until the Galapagos because it smells funny and it was also cloudy and rainy.

I'm pretty burnt now.

Anyway, it was a great hike and we learned more than we could have in class. The ground was covered in little spiders, which kind of freaked me out a little, but I'm definitely working on that! I also tripped a few times, fell on my butt sliding down a mountain and stepped in a fresh cowpie. I'm so pretty. The plantlife is pretty different from any hike in New England I've ever been on... sooo many prickly plants. From the highest point we got to, we were able to see a lot of Quito, the Cumbaya area, and really take note of all the logging and other human activity that is destroying the country. It's pretty pathetic. The government is so corrupt and the wealthy people in Ecuador are building their mansions everywhere and dominating the gov't. There was a bunch of logging done on Ilalo on the mountainside, and the people building the house changed their minds and started the project somewhere else. The soil is so infertile... It's been 7 years and nothing has regrown. Disgusting. Anyway, saw some pretty cool plant life and I will update with more pictures. There is this crabbe grass, though, which is an invasive species and coats the forest floor of the mountain, which is a problem because it's competing with the native species.

Ecuadorian traffic...

... Driving in Ecuador is insane! We've been taking cabs everywhere, mostly because it's a dollar or two to get wherever we need to go and it is much safer than walking (for gringos). People pass each other all the time and ignore the yellow lines in the middle of the road.



A group of kids and i jumped in a cab to go to Mariscal..

We were in a taxi with a driver really trying to talk to us and give us advice and tell us about himself and his time in the U.S. He was 55. He was in the military stationed at New Jersey in 1982. He spent some years on the Galapagos. His missing teeth took nothing away from his smile.
A huge truck was about to cut us off, and the passenger in the truck popped out the window to let the taxi know that they needed to turn and the taxi nodded. No Boston honking or stubborn challenging.

arriving at the equator

I waited at the airport for a bajillion hours and somewhere in between that I just asked a bunch of random people if they were going to USFQ (the host institution for GAIAS) and they all were! I was so glad I had someone to talk to about the trip! And guess what? They all got a message beforehand saying that we could take 2 50 lb bags abroad because they would be weighing our luggage as a group and there would be no excess charge. Guess who never got that email? ME! I can safely say, that of all the girls AND boys, I brought the least amount of stuff. I will be wearing the same 3 outfits up until we go shopping and after that I am going to look like a confused gringo who is desperately trying to fit in... until I get tan, that is. Then I will look pretty Ecuadorian.
Speaking of tan, I was at the equator line today. I put sunblock on before we went, because it was noon and we were literally on the equator line. Now I have some funny tan lines on the upper half of my body... the sun rays went through my shirt and burned me... so my arms and legs and chest aren't nearly as bad as my shoulders (that were under my t shirt) and below the neckline... it's kind of like an opposite sunburn. Kind of funny, kind of itchy at the same time. Anyway, the equator was really cool. Scientists calculated it a million years ago using wacko tools and were actually 27 meters off (not bad) but there are a series of tests conducted at the exact line and they are really simple but crazy to see... At the equator, because of the centrifical (sp?) forces, a lot of weird stuff happens, like the currents that are created in the northern and southern hemispheres that Dr. Crandall probably told you about, blah blah. But what also happens at the equator is that you lose resistance at the exact line. So at the equator, you weigh 2.2 kilos less and have less resistance in your muscles. So a foot above the equator, we had someone push down our arms and we tried to resist it as much as possible. At the equator, we tried and our arms were almost instantly pushed down. It's a really weird feeling, and a great way for your muscles to get mushy... Kind of like astronauts except that they experience it times a thousand...
Then, on the equator line, I balanced an egg on a nail! HA! I was one of three people in my group who could do it. I got a certificate and everything. Aren't you proud guys? haha :(
Then my favorite one... And I have it on video... We put a sink on the equator and filled it will water and a few little leaves... The water went straight down! Ah! So we did it a foot above the equator and a foot below, and they swirled in opposite directions! One foot! How awesome is that?
Also at this location they had replicated some houses of the indigenous tribes and talked about some customs. I guess there are a few different groups in the mountains, outside of where we are at now. One of them is dying out because they are only reproducing with each other and they are getting pretty weak as a result of generations of incest and gene mutation. We saw some artifacts from the other groups... In their huts they have only one window, because the smoke in the house makes the surfaces waterproof. And their walls are made of animal poo, but it doesn't smell as bad as you might think. They also have little pens in their houses for their guinea pigs, or cuy as they call them (Apparently guinea pigs make a little cuy cuy cuy cuy sound so they are named as such. I LOVE english animal sounds versus spanish animal sounds) Cuy is really important because it's their main food supply and they want to protect them so they keep them in their house. Also, if someone is sick, the town doctor will take one of their cuy and rub it all over their bodies and when they are done with that, they will cut open the cuy and whatever is wrong with the little pig is what is ailing the sick person. I wonder how that's working out for them.
And then I saw some dead things from the Amazon including but not limited to, the skin of an anaconda, a couple huge spiders, that little fishy that swims up your urethra if you pee in the water and latches on with their teeth and needs to be surgically removed, some poisonous snakes, a boa constrictor, and a shrunken head of a 12 year old boy. And I also learned how to prepare a human head for shrinkage. And I did get a copy of those directions.