The Galapagos

Week of October 2nd to 8th
This was the last week of Fernando Ortega’s Health Culture and the Environment class, we had to finish up our project and present them. The class was interesting because it went over a lot of things I had already covered in my UNC Global Health course but it looked at them with a slightly different perspective, focusing more on the cultural side. We did not have class on Friday which worked out perfectly because Friday morning I went on the local radio station in the Galapagos. My friend David and I were playing a gig at the main bar on the island on Saturday night so the owner of the bar got us on the local radio station to promote the show and play a couple songs. The weekend was also special because it was ‘La Regata’. La Regata is an annual sailing race from the mainland of Ecuador to the Galapagos and it ends in San Cristobal with a big festival. So Saturday the town was full with the sailors from the race and the whole boardwalk was full with tents for the festival. I had played a gig at Casa Blanca Friday night so I went and picked up my guitar Saturday morning and walked around the festival. When I walked by the stage where there were performers I was flagged down by the organizer and was asked to play a set for the festival. So I played there and announced the show we were having that night as well. The gig went great, the bar was packed with over 150 people and it was a lot of fun playing electric with David playing the drum set. David has played drums for a long time and plays back home in Chico so it was really easy for us to play with each other and follow each other. Sunday I just relaxed and rested.

Week of October 9th to 15th
This week was the start of our next class, Political Ecology. This class was taught by Carlos Mena, who spent some time studying at UNC. Carlos was a very personable guy and made it easy to talk in class and get discussions going. There was a bit of reading for the class every day, but it wasn’t too bad. In the afternoons I snorkeled, relaxed on the beach, read, and explored the town. Friday night I played at Casa Blanca again. It is nice playing there because I have become good friends with the whole family that works there. On Saturday a group of us went across the island to Puerto Chino, a beautiful beach, to go camping. It was amazing, one of the nicest beaches I have ever been on. We slept under the stars and I had the shock to wake up with a sea lion lying right beside me. All in all it was a lot of fun!

Week of October 16th-22nd
On Tuesday of this week our class went on a field trip. We started out going to a Coffee Plantation in the highlands and saw the process that went into making the coffee. Then we visited a NGO called Hacienda Tranquila that helped educate the local farmers in the highlands about more sustainable methods. After that we went to El Junco, the only fresh water source on the Galapagos in the form of a crater lake. Then we went to the Galapaguera, a restoration project for the giant land tortoises on the island. We got to see the tiny baby tortoises up to the giant tortoises that were about 3 or 4 feet long. After the Galapaguera we got to spend the end of the day in Puerto Chino again, which was just as amazing as the weekend camping. On Wednesday we were introduced to our second teacher for the class, Christian. Christian seemed to be the opposite of Carlos, he was not very personable and seemed to be used to teaching Graduate level classes. We had to read more and write more reading responses for the second half of class. Then on Saturday a group of us went to the highlands of the island to go to some mud baths. It was pretty cool; we had a guide who studied geobiology, what he explained to be the study of the world as one living being. I’m not sure if I believed all of what he said, but he had some very interesting ideas. When we got back from the mud baths David and I played another electric gig at Café Del Mar for an early Halloween party.


Week of October 23rd-29th
For the last week of our Political Ecology class we had to finish our projects. For my project I was working with my friend Travis surveying and mapping out where the dogs lived on the island. We wanted to see if the locations of the dogs were correlated with locations of dog’s attacks on sea lions. The project went pretty well and the class was pretty good overall. It was a little bit too much plain theory for me but it was interesting. On Friday we left for our island hopping trip. Instead of fall break, our vacation this semester is a week long island hopping trip to Santa Cruz and Isabela. We had a 2 or 3 hour long boat ride to Santa Cruz which was pretty bumpy. On Saturday we took a short boat trip to a small island Seymor and saw the red bellied frigates, giant tortoises, and iguanas. After we went to small tide pools where there were white tipped sharks resting.

Week of October 30th-November 5th
Sunday we took another short boat ride to another island, La Lobereria, where there was supposed to be lots of sea lions that you could snorkel with. We saw some sea lions when we arrived but when we started snorkeling they all went away, a couple minutes later we saw a Galapagos shark swimming which must have scared away all of the sea lions. In the afternoon we went to another beach and snorkeled and relaxed. Then on Monday we went to some other places including some cliffs that we jumped off of that were about 45 feet high. On Tuesday we went to Isabela and stayed there until Friday. We saw lava tunnels, sharks, manta rays, spotted eagle rays, an octopus eating a crab, and more. We spent a day climbing Volcano Sierra Negra and Volcano Chico and had delicious food at a local hacienda. I played music at a bonfire on the beach with an amazing flutist. We also went to the wall of tears, built by the penal colony that used to be on the Galapagos. Then Thursday afternoon we went rappelling down a cave. We had harnesses, helmets, and could be clipped in the whole time… Except the harness was just a rope tied around our legs and waste, the helmets were bike helmets, and there wasn’t much to clip onto on the way down. We went down 150 meters, it was scary but incredible. The cave was only discovered 2 years ago and nobody has discovered the end of the cave. Friday we went to another cave and then got on a boat and returned back to San Cristobal. It was a fun vacation and it was great to get to spend time with our whole group. Now were back in San Cristobal for a month and a half more, taking two more classes. I’m excited for the rest of the semester and will try to keep up with the blog a little more often!