Friday 27.01.2012 – Saturday 28.01.2012

            This weekend was quite eventful and I am sure that most all of you have heard about what happened at some point. After class on Friday, as usual, we went to the beach to watch the sunset. This beach is one of the longest sand beaches because on many of the other inhabited islands the sand has been removed from the beaches to make cement. This sunset was exceptionally beautiful as the sun sank below Cerro Azul, the southern-most volcano on Isabela.

            A group of us started playing volleyball with some of the local boys, a few of which could speak English surprisingly well. At some point, besides talking to people involved with IOI, I came to expect Spanish because we were just immersed in it.

            Anyway, that night Anderson, my 11 year-old brother that I thought was going to be on the continent while I was there, asked me to play soccer with him, my Dad, Mom and Snaider. So I laced up my new montrail hiking sneakers and we headed to the turf field by the beach, known as the Concha by locals. Unfortunately people were already playing on the field, so Anderson and I kicked the ball around on the beach. For some reason my feet were just slipping and sliding in my 2 day-worn new shoes. The quick change in direction did not help at all and once we moved to play in the Concha, my big toe just started hurting more and more.

Other than this, I had a great time! I got to play a sport that I love and connected with Anderson, which I had been struggling with since I arrived, especially once he realized that I was pretty good, at least for a girl. This is saying something because girls on Isabela do not really play soccer, well at least not competitively.

We got back home and once I took my shoes off, I saw blood on my sock and my big toe on my right foot was throbbing – Bad sign #1.

The next day in the afternoon a group of us went to the surfer’s beach, also known as el faro (because of the nearby lighthouse) along the road to the Wall of Tears. I had my toes wrapped up in a band-aid and ran into the water. The waves were spectacular, perfect for body surfing. By the time I got out of the water and looked at my toe, I knew something was wrong. When I pressed on my nail, a weird yellow fluid came out – Bad sign #2.

It was late afternoon by the time I got the chance to tell someone from IOI and that night I was taken to the hospital to get it cleaned. Two of the IOI coordinators went with me to translate what the doctor said. Basically he told me I was going to lose my toenail in about a week. The doctor told me to come back every day to get it cleaned because with the sand streets and all of the dirt that we walked through every day the chances of infection were much higher. Also I was not allowed to go swimming for 4-6 days, which was painful in itself. Who knew playing soccer in sneakers that are a little too small could have such serious consequences?

Monday 23.01.2012

            After dinner I went with my family to a friend’s house that was along the same road but much closer to the beach and closer to the most expensive hotel on Isabela, where my Mom worked called Iguana Crossing. The house was quite large or perhaps just appeared to be excessively large because the 2 bedroom and one bathroom was the perfect size and I got to see my family more often, without having to wander through a big house to figure out where they were.

            We got a tour and saw the 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms and laundry room with electrical wires that were sparking. The presence of sparks did not appear to phase my family and I was under the impression that this was not a big deal. In the main room, I saw the first real couch since arriving in the Galapagos. We all sat down and watched one of the two channels that Puerto Villamil gets. A novella was on that challenges the ridiculous soap operas that are shown back in the States.

            After hanging out for a while we walked home and my Mom told me something in Spanish that I did not understand, unfortunately at this point the lack of understanding was not uncommon. At first I thought my Mom told me that I was going to move into this house with the family living there now, which had me quite worried. So I asked her to repeat herself. After the second explanation, I thought she said that all of us were moving into this house with the family. Obviously I didn’t know what to think and after asking my Mom to repeat what she said once, I didn’t want to ask again. I just dropped it, hoping that I had misunderstood both times.

Saturday 21.01.2012 – Sunday 22.01.2012

The first weekend was filled with family bonding time, which was wonderful. Our bike tour of Puerto Villamil took no more than 30 minutes, which tells you how small our new home really was. For the most part everyone or almost everyone lives near one another within the development area, while I lived a block from the beach and right next door to IOI; definitely convenient. My house was quite hidden and you had to walk through a blocked off alley to get there.  There was a cute, little store in front of the alley to my house that was owned by woman who happened to be the ‘grandmother’ of one of the girls in our program. Every time I walked by her store, she had a big smile on her face and we would exchange pleasantries. But then again this is not against the norm and greeting people around town happened all of the time. Everyone is quite friendly and even more so once they got used to seeing us around.

Now back to the weekend’s activities…

            I went with my family to the playa that I thought would be a sandy beach, but instead it was this lagoon covered with lava rock above and below the water. This spot is located next to the Puerto Villamil dock and is called Concha de Perla and is used by locals as a swimming and snorkel spot because of all of the marine life that resides within its boundaries. Later in our Marine Ecology course we became quite acquainted with the Concha, going there many times throughout the 2 weeks to observe and collect data for our projects.

At one point I was standing on some lava rock that was underneath the water and suddenly I felt something nip at my foot. The next few moments saw this happening over and over again. My host Mom, who was overlooking the funny dance that I was doing to try to avoid being bitten, tried to explain to me that small fish were biting at my feet. Of course at this point, I understood very little of what she said but later came to find out that the fish that were nipping at my feet were Yellowtail Damselfish; they are quite territorial and were not too happy with my feet being on their well groomed algal lawns.

Snaider is probably the cutest 2 year-old that I have ever seen. In the first couple of days he really didn’t know what to think about me but once I started pushing him around on his push-fire truck he would run into my room and ask me to push him around. We also started making funny faces at each other, which I think amused my host parents immensely ;)

Friday 20.01.2012

            We walked from the campsite to Bellavista and got to talk with Rene’s mother-in-law who has been living on Santa Cruz since 1959. This same year, her husband asked the Ecuadorian government to start a colony on Santa Cruz because of a fresh water source and also because this was during a time when the fate of the Galapagos was still being determined. Different countries, including the U.S. wanted the claim the Galapagos as their own. In the end, this and other colonies in the Galapagos made the difference and these islands came under the ownership of Ecuador.

            The day of traveling to Isabela began as we returned to Puerto Ayora and to the docks that we would leave from. The boat ride was about 2 hours and we arrived loaded with all of our stuff for our three-month stay. Our host families picked us up and before we headed off for our welcome dinner, everyone got situated. I joined my family in their room as we watched Barney, which I soon came to realize was the only thing Snaider HAD to watch. Then we headed to, what soon came to be the trademark lunch spot for IOI, El Faro for a welcome dinner. Soon we settled into our new homes with our newfound families and our adventure on Isabela had begun.

Thursday 19.01.2012

            This is the first day that we had a spare few hours to explore Puerto Ayora before leaving for the highlands of Santa Cruz in the late morning and then leaving Santa Cruz the next day. The few hours did not end up being enough to go to the Darwin Research Station, as my roommates and I had hoped, however I went with Amanda to help her find sunglasses in one of the stores in town. The pickings were slim and surprisingly very few stores carried sunglasses. Strange I know for an island town on the equator!

            The ride up to the highlands was beautiful. We saw the transition from a desert-like coast to lush, wild highlands. Honestly, it was so much cooler up here that I was reminded of the mountains of NC during the summer, with the drizzly, cool weather and being completely surrounded by green. We arrived at the campsite, which has two tents that were pitched and two cabins with semi-running water. After we dropped our stuff off, we went walking around. We saw tons of Galapagos Giant Tortoises everywhere and actually saw two mating. We had freshly roasted coffee beans and some sugar cane liquor, which was really strong. We had tuna for dinner, which was cooked over the same fire that the coffee beans were roasted over.

So Behind :O

So what I feared would happen has… I have left my blog desolate for too long and I am at the tail end of my 13+ weeks in Ecuador with only a little less than a week traveling on the mainland remaining. Obviously the whole posting every day thing is not happening so I am going to try to go class by class, focusing on the exciting days instead the class/ study days that seemed to dominate our second and to some extent third class. My new goal is to update all of you and have everything posted by the time I get back to Jacksonville… so let’s see what happens :)