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
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