Spring Break

Last week was our spring break aka island hopping tour. The whole thing was planned out for us; first we went to Santa Cruz, took a day trip to the small, uninhabited Bartolome, and then went to Isabela. A few of my friends went with one friend's host mom to Santa Cruz again for the weekend. It was by far the best spring break I have ever had.

In Santa Cruz, we did a bunch of snorkeling and went to the beach. It was all really beautiful and we saw some sharks, pelicans, and a couple of penguins. My favorite place in Santa Cruz is called Las Grietas, or the cracks. It is a place where two cliffs border a "crack" full of brackish water. The best part is you can climb the rocks and jump into the water. It was pretty terrifying but so much fun when I finally got myself to jump.

When we went to Bartolome we swam with a penguin! The Galapagos penguin is the only penguin that lives north of the equator, and it is adorable. At Bartolome, we snorkeled around this beautiful beach that ended in this gorgeous projection called Pinnacle Rock. We also hiked up one of the hills to see an amazing view. Like a lot of what we saw, there was mostly lava rock with sparse vegetation. The Galapagos was made completely from a hot spot in the ocean, and as the tectonic plate below them moves, so will the islands, with new ones being made. The islands move to the east about 7 cm every year.

Las Grietas

Bartolome

Pinnacle Rock

After three days in Santa Cruz, we went over to Isabela Island. This one was by far my favorite. There was a beautiful beach (and beach bar) where you could watch the sunset behind a mountain in the distance. In Isabela, we snorkeled and also hiked up a huge shield volcano called Sierra Negra. This volcano has a huge caldera, or crater on top. It felt like being in prehistoric times to see all of the lava rock and no life up there. After that hike, we went into a cave made of a lava tunnel where there was complete darkness. The water from the surface was dripping through the rock and bringing minerals to the roof of the cave, making it look like gold. There are fewer people on Isabela, and it feels a little more peaceful and laid-back than San Cristobal and Santa Cruz (which is saying a lot because every island is really laid-back). I would love to go back to Isabela and maybe dive or do some more snorkeling, and definitely spend more time on the beach. Being here felt like I was truly on vacation in paradise. In Isabela, we saw tons of white-tipped sharks, penguins, marine iguanas, and flamingoes, which was really exciting. The wildlife here is unbelievable. 

Sierra Negra

Inside the cave

I'm so thankful that I got to spend my spring break doing such amazing things. These islands are so unique and I couldn't think of any place better to spend this time. They are so gorgeous and full of awesome people. I hope I can come back here someday and I hope that these islands never change at all.

Chao!

One month

So I have been in San Cristobal for about a month now. I think I have the island life down. Last week was Carnaval, or in the US, Mardi Gras/Fat Tuesday. This holiday comes before Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent. The premise is that people traditionally needed to consume all of their fats before giving them up for Lent. So in the US, we eat donuts and stuff, while in here in Ecuador we throw the donuts at each other.

Okay, we don't actually through donuts at each other, but the things that make them. At the beach outside our university, there were big parties on the weekend before Carnaval to Fat Tuesday. Everyone smeared one another with paint, flour, eggs, fish oil (ew), and water. It was a lot of fun because for a few days, a social barrier was broken down. Everyone in town is fair game. We made lots of young Ecuadorian friends by being painted and retaliating, and by the end of Tuesday, my neighbors and my host family had an all out war with water, flour, eggs, fish oil, and even chili powder. There was a mass of dough on my head by the end of the day and I was totally covered by paint.

Class has been pretty busy because this is our last week of Phylogenetics. It can be difficult to stick to work here because the beach is so distracting. We have a project due Friday in which we need to make a phylogenetic tree of the group of organisms that we chose. Our choice was big cats, so we found lots of data on the genetics and need to build a tree depicting the evolutionary relationships between the species. It's really difficult to use all this new software for it, but really interesting as well. Then, Friday afternoon we leave for spring break! We are going island hopping to Isabela, Santa Cruz, and Bartolome. I'm really excited for all the awesome snorkeling and hiking we will do, it's going to be amazing. The Galapagos are such a unique place with soo many things to see, I'm excited to get to see more of it!

Last week I also started my digital photography class. I really like it, the professor is from Quito and is a professional photographer with some really great work. Our class is based on landscapes and we needed to pick a theme to pull all of our photos together for a final project.