Two Weeks to Go

Hey, quick update: I'm back in Quito. Everything's great. Right now I'm figuring out travel plans around Ecuador before I have to go back to the States.

The good news is I've finally posted pictures! Go check 'em out on my Picasa site.

Later,
~Joey

Santa Cruz, You're Not That Far

Quick hello from the island Isabela!

I just found a little internet shop, so I stopped in for a few minutes to check vital things and update the ol' bloggeroo.

Today we did a big hike up the side of one volcano, a bit around its rim, and then down a (not hot) lava covered hill to another smaller volcano. Crazy stuff. Lots of walking, maybe about 16km give or take. Super awesome views of the volcanoes and of the whole island as well as other neighboring islands.

Tomorrow we'll be relaxing and also going snorkeling in a spot or two. There should be some interesting things to see there. Then after tomorrow, we go to our last island: Santa Cruz, where we'll spend a day or so and then fly back to Quito on Sunday. Everything's coming to a close so quickly, but we're having such a great time.

I'll let you guys know how the rest of the trip goes when I get back to Quito. Hopefully I'll be able to post a bunch of pictures as well.

Last day on San Cristobal

Well, ladies and gentlemen, the title says it all. Today (Monday) is our last day here on this island. Yesterday the liberal arts group arrived. We knew they would be doing things that we did on our first day, so when they came to a particular lookout, we made sure to be snorkeling in the water down below. Incidentally, it's the cove on the island where Darwin arrived. Hey, did you know that when Darwin came to the Galapagos (in 1835), he was here for only 5 weeks. He probably didn't stay on San Cristobal for more than a few days to a week, and he definitely didn't go snorkeling.

A few days ago I bought an underwater disposable camera. I took some really cool pictures of fish and sea lions. It was a lot of fun, but I can tell I got spoiled by the invention of the digital camera. After like 20 minutes in the water, I looked down at the camera and was surprised to see I had used up 2/3rds of my pictures already.

So I've been here for about a week. Here's what my next week looks like: us ecology kids are going to go on a tour with the liberal arts kids to three other islands: Floreana, Isabela (the biggest) and Santa Cruz. We'll spend a few days at each and get from one to the other via boat. There will be more snorkeling involved and a bunch of other cool stuff. I have no clue if I'll have access to the internet during the next week, so the next post may come from Quito. I return on the 8th.

Until then, take care everyone!
~Joey

Sand

OK, first off: Correction - In my previous post, I said that the sand on one beach was coarse because the islands were relatively new and the material making up the sand was still breaking down to finer sand (or something like that). That's actually not the case at all. What I should have said was that the beach was young. The island is plenty old enough-- at least 5 million years old. A few days ago, we went on a field trip that ended up at the world's most perfect beach: white, soft sand, clear blue-green water, black rocks poking up in artistic ways along the fringes of the beach... It was beautiful. It was at this beach that I saw my second wild octopus. This one was bigger than the first one, and it was moving around more too. It was crawling around the rock it was on and then it shot off and swam a little ways, changing color do a dark blue, then it landed on a different rock and instantly camouflaged. It was really cool to watch its color changing right before my eyes. A part of me wanted to bother it so I could watch it shoot out an ink cloud, but I decided that probably wasn't the best idea.