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.