San Cristobal, Galapagos

I got to San Cristobal last month and managed to find my way to the remote station up in the island's highlands. It's amazing here, like a tropical jungle in the interior and then a dry sunny beach by the coasts. The place I work in is rustic, with lots of insects and HUGE spiders, but the atmosphere is relaxed and the hard work is well worth the effort. The majority of my time is spent macheteing invasive blackberry bushes and other nasty intruders around the station. There are fruit trees everywhere growing wild: bananas, papayas, oranges, mandarin, lemons, passionfruit, guava, etc., and all are introduced. So technically they're weeds we have to get rid of, but instead of chopping them down we just drink a lot of fruit juice for breakfast. Tuesday and Thursday nights are bar night, and the whole lot of us walk down the muddy road to a neighbor's "finca" where we play cards and have a drink. The way the volunteer system is set up here there are always people leaving and coming in. The fast and frequent changes takes a little getting used to.

I've made some really good friends here so far! The station gives us the weekends off and we travel down into the port town, a 45 minute drive to the coast. I have had an incredible snorkeling experience here, an opportunity I had not expected at all when first applying to Jatun Sacha. Yesterday I went on a snorkeling trip through a diving organization that works with Jatun Sacha to get affordable trips for the volunteers, and on the way to the site we saw whales! At first there was a Humpback in the distance—exciting enough, so I thought—but then a few minutes later we came across a family of Orcas! Apparently it is really rare to see Orcas in this area. We lucked out an even got one that came spectacularly close to our boat! I had the opportunity to travel to one snorkeling/diving site called 'Leon Dormido' ('Kicker Rock' in English), consisting of 2 massive rock formations jutting out from deep ocean, where sharks and rays like to roam. At first I was a bit nervous getting in the water, seeing as I have never been in endlessly deep blue with sharks in my immediate vicinity, but after 5 minutes I felt really relaxed. It was awesome. I got to see so many sea turtles under the water.

Everything in Ecuador is cheap compared to the US. I can easily get a full meal for $3 around here, and that's considering that the Galapagos Islands are more expensive than the Ecuadorian mainland because everything has to be imported. Works really well for me: I get to experience a lot and not spend my entire earnings at the first station.

I get to see a lot of wildlife here, including cool Galapagos endemics like the Giant Tortoises and Darwin Finches. There are also lots of sea birds like the Frigates and Blue-Footed Boobies. Sometimes I have to stop and remind myself of how lucky I am to see these things, because everything feels like it's going by so fast. I remember reading about how Darwin figured out the theory of evolution through natural selection from studying the finches on the Galapagos. Now I am here observing the birds as well. And since these animals have not been exposed to humans for that long, in relative terms, you can get really close to them without bothering them (I've got some awesome camera shots).

So far things are great. There have been the bad times of course, getting sick, having an entire week of rain and the proliferation of mosquito-like insects called "Carmelitos" that cover your exposed skin in rashes, losing my things, etc. But that's all part of the experience, in my view, and I am learning a lot about reforestation techniques and the Galapagos Islands in general, so it all pays off. I am looking forward to my next few weeks here.