The weekend.... thus far.

Well, we've had a few days now of very dark skies with not much coming out of them... until last night.  As myself and another intern and our boss were heading out for a bite last night, a torrential downpour started, and we were completely soaked through to the skin when we arrived at the local food stalls.  This is not like the spitty, misty rain inVancouver at all!  After a bite to eat, we went to a small club for a bit of dancing, since it was a send-off for the gal who's leaving on Monday.  (P.S. things I was sure I'd do in the Galapagos: see animals, take pictures, and scuba.  Things I NEVER thought I'd be doing in the Galapagos....  dancing in a thatched roof nightclub in the puddle that had come through the roof while Lady GaGa's "Poker Face" played on the stereo....)

Today, since I didn't have anything I had to do (OMG, I love being able to say that!), I went to the beach at Tortuga Bay, which is a lovely, long stretch of soft white sand scattered with black-as-night volcanic rocks.  The area is better suited for surfing, but it was lovely nonetheless to lay out on the sand and take a bit of sun, read, and enjoy a modest picnic of guava-jam sandwiches and fruit.   

(Inner thought..... debating whether or not to share the fiasco with the laundry this morning.....  oh what the hell, why not?)  So as I went to do laundry this morning, I found that since the humidity is so high here (and hence, your clothes are never really 'dry'), it's not such a fabulous idea to leave your dirty laundry tied up in a plastic bag for.... 2 weeks until you get around to washing it.  It tends to accumulate....  mold.  Yeeeeeeah, freaky, right?  So, since the washing machine only does 'agua frio', I gave my clothes a bit of a pre-wash in the sink with some hot water, and my vigourous scrubbing gave me a massive blister on my finger...!!!  Hahahah!  Now, all the time I spent in India should have prepared my for a conundrum such as this, but perhaps I'm out of practice.  (And for all of you out there right now thinking "Eeeeeew!"....  well c'mon.  I can't have you guys thinking I live in a TOTAL paradise....  re: reference to toxic 12 inch long centipede in the house). 

Also, AJ....  I have thrown in a little 'bicicleta' photo just for you....  missing you tons.

Besos y abrazos de Galapagos! 

Diving for work

Yes, it's true.  I think I had my first real hard day's work here (honestly!).  We went out today to do our lobster survey in Tortuga Bay.  Basically, we have a big mesh blob chained to the ocean floor, and that's an ideal place for lobster larvae to inhabit while they are 'itsy-bitsy'.  So we leave this thing there for perhaps a month, let things gather, and then bring it up and shake it out to see what's inside.  Mostly, we are looking for an estimate of how the lobster population is doing.  Then the mesh blob has to be taken back down and chained to the sea floor again, and there are about 2-3 of these in each location.  That's a lot of up and down! (no jokes please...)

 

I've been given a bike here, so I can get from the park to town 'muy facil' now.  I'm fitting in like a local, I already know where in town the bike lane changes from one side of the road to the other (a seemingly unimportant detail until you realize that pedestrains and bikes definately have NO right of way here).  Also, Mum and Dad, since you wanted to know what my 'digs' were like, I've thrown in a few more pics for you guys.  This is the house I live in, we have a washer/dryer, that's just my dive gear on the line outside....  Like I said, liveable, but nothing fancy.  Besos y abrazos de Galapagos! 

Giant tortoises and hammerhead sharks

(sigh)...  Well, what's happened since we last checked in?  Friday, myself and some of the other volunteers went to post our usual bulletins of ogeanographic data around the town, and we stopped off at the Darwin Research Station.  There, they have 'el centro de crianza' which is a hatchery center for baby giant tortoises.  Since a host of invasive species (such as cats and rats) have taken a toll on the eggs survival, the different species eggs are reared here until the hatchlings are old enough to defend themselves in the wild.  At the research station, they also have Lonesome George, the last surviving individual of the Pinta Island tortoises.  Que lastima! (what a pity!)  He has some girlfriends from Wolf Island with him, which is the species most closely related gentically.  There are also a few other giants there.... :)

Sunday I decided to get my feet wet again after a long sojourn from diving.  As a park volunteer, I get a deal on diving from a local shop, but I have to help out with bringing in all the gear from the boat and rinsing it (one of these days I want to get paid to work again!).  We went to a place called Gordon's Rocks, which are just two or three rocky volcano tops sticking out of the water.  Diving was great, saw some hammerhead sharks (!), but the visibility was poor, and the current was so strong that almost everybody was exhausted and out of air after 35 min!  No problem, there's always next weekend!

Besos y abrazos de Galapagos!

Day 4.... Sea Lion rescue! (aka, rescate del lobo marino)

Pobrecito!!  (means "poor thing" in spanish).  Yesterday, the gardeparques (park officers) saw a sea lion with massive cuts all over it's back, most likely from a boat propeller.  Today, they managed to capture it and bring it to the park office where the gangrenous flesh was removed, it was given antibiotics, cleaned up, and set free.  Chevere!!!  When we released the poor fellow, he looked back at us for a while as if to say...  "Thanks guys".  Nah, it was probably the drugs making his head spin.

Anyways, I'm also posting a few pictures to give you guys an idea of how tough life is here.  Basically, I live in a house in the middle of the park, which is pretty much jungle, my walk to work in the morning is 5 min. down a little mud path, and we have 2 hr lunches (mas o menos) where we have ice cream in the town and watch the fisherman bring in their catches, which are carefully inspected by the local brown pelicans.

Having a terrible time....  Ha!

Llegue!! (aka, arrived!)

Yes, that´s right.  I have arrived, more or less with no problems.  Except one...  which isn´t really a problem.

So, I thought I was supposed to be going to Isabela, but when I finally arrived in Santa Cruz, took the ferry, the bus, and arrived in Puerto Ayora, I was unable to catch the last ferry of the day to Isabela.  When I called my contact at the Natioinal Park, all I managed to get in a broken conversation was to come to the park office in Puerto Ayora (thinking they´d just put me up for the night until I could go to Isabela).  But when I arrived at the park office, they tell me that there were some changes and I´d be stationed in Santa Cruz (not Isabela).  Well holy crap am I glad I missed the boat (no pun intended), otherwise it´d have been two hours overwater in the wrong direction!!  This is not really a bad thing...  most of the dive shops offering day trips are located in Puerto Ayora....  so you can bet your ass you know what Andrea is doing on her weekends off!  Hahahaha!! 

Also, is there some unwritten law that all research jobs come with a mandatory period of cleaning out some junkie storage room...?  Oh well, it was only one day (not a week).  When I left the office today to go for an after-work swim at the beach, who was there to greet me outside the office gates...?  My first marine iguana.  Chevere!  I had to get out of it´s way as it started walking right towards me.  Tomorrow we are going on the boat to do oceanographic monitoring!  Thursday then must be diving to learn how to do the lobster surveys and ´muestras animales´...!

Oh, and PS...  I´ve been told this font and color suck.  Does anyone else think so?  And Suzie...  I changed the blog to allow comments!
 

Quito... if only breifly.

Phew, have finally arrived after a looong day of travel.  When we first arrived in Quito, the plane was unable to land due to rain and fog, and so we had to fly to Guayquil and refuel and sit on the tarmac for 1.5 hrs.  I was thinking to myself...  what's a bit of rain??  Pilots land in a bit of rain and fog all the time in Vancouver, right?  Well, the lovely Ecuadorian gal form Quito sitting next to me on the plane explained that because Quito is at such high and altitude and surrounded by mountains, it makes landing very difficult.  What's so hard about landing around mountains, I thought?  Pilots do it in Vancouver all the time, right?  Well, apparently, the airport in nestled in the heart of the city, which is nestled right in the heart of some peaks.  Then I was remined a few years ago about the plane that crashed into the side of a mountain when trying to land in bad weather in Quito....  that's OK, I'd rather be tired and arrive late rather than be splattered on the side of a mountain.

Departure!!

OK, here we go!  Waiting at the airport to board my plane.  Still recovering from the 'excess baggage' show this morning w/ Continental.  I swear, a heavy bag cannot possibly make that much of a difference to the fuel economy of a jet that the airline has to bend you over and give you the proverbial KY treatment for it (sigh).  If my Visa could shed tears..... 

Next stop....  QUITO!!!!!