Land Iguana, Santa Cruz 

getting ready to hula

Wahoo! We finally got the internet working at the foundation, so I can send more pictures without dropping too much dough. Today Vicente and I are practicing for our big hooping-drumming debut tonight at San Viernes Cultural, the friday night cultural show of the Galapagos. It’s a big deal here, and the women of my adoptive family here have been busy trying to find something for me to wear, hehehe. I´m actually a little bit nervous, since I can´t remember the last time I performed on stage… actually, I´ve never danced on stage before… but nobody needs to know that, right? My routine is a blend of hooping, dancing, tricks, and belly-dance moves. I´m hoping it works out. It´s actually really exhausting to practice over and over again, so I haven´t really got all that much planned out except for the beginning and the end- at which point I will hopefully be twirling it around with my feet in the air… we shall see, we shall see…
Hula in the Sunset 

Salt Mines on Santa Cruz, Sunset
photo by Vicente

Fishing Trip on Isabella, Vicente y Andr�s
photo by Jackie

Santa Cruz Island (2 days ago)

Note>> having lots of trouble posting pics, so if these don't show up right away, come back later and hopefully they will be fixed soon...

Yesterday Vicente and I returned from Santa Cruz Island with a bit of marea (seasickness) and the remnants of a 1-day fever. The trip was gorgeous and cheap (5 buckeroos) but we now realize that the weekend traveling can be overly tiring! In any case, we were able to go so cheaply because this weekend was the election of the reina (queen) of the Galapagos, an annual beauty pageant here that pits the islands against each other in order to see who can produce la chiquita mas bonita de todos.

When we arrived I was afraid that we wouldn’t have enough time to see the wildlife and get to know the island, since our trip was less than 2 days (friday afternoon, saturday, sunday morning). However, within an hour of arriving, and after consulting a map and eating a bolon de verde (green plaintain and cheese ball), we took off for aventuras. We hiked to a site called Las Grietas, which was a narrow canal of crystal water surrounded by lava-rock cliffs where one can swim with the white-tipped reef sharks that we saw in Isabella (see picture of shark). Unfortunately, it was too late in the afternoon to swim, but the peacefulness of not having any other tourists in sight more than made up for this, and we got to enjoy the pristine beach and pink-tinted salt mines along the way. (see the picture of the salt mines in the sunset, which Vicente snapped on the way back).

After a delicious dinner of coconut-marinated fish and menestra (beans in gravy), we hopped a taxi to the election of the reina, which was the main event of the weekend, the beauty pageant (see pic of one of the contestants in her full specially-designed galapagos ballgown- these came complete with starfish and glittery sea-animals).

The pageant lasted from 9-1:30, which was way too long for us. We cut out with our musician-friends around 11 and then came back and cut out again later, when we realized that 7 hotels on the island didn’t have space for us to stay the night and we had no roof over our heads (finally we found a place along the main street, surprisingly enough). Anyways, the night was nice and the Reina from San Cristobal won. She was definitely a better dancer and more bucksome, though whether she more convincingly argued for world peace I’m not sure ; )

The next day we explored the turtle and iguana reserves of the national park with some of the friends and now-family that we live next to (I had never seen the land iguanas, so this was very exciting for me). The land iguanas are different from the marine iguanas we had seen on San Cristobal and Isabella. These are black and blend in almost perfectly with the lava rocks- they barely move, but when they do the spit and can also dive into the water to retrieve algae. The land iguanas are bigger and yellow and eat cactus leaves (which are yellow inside). Speaking of cactus, later in the day we hiked through a cactus forest on the way to Tortuga Bay, a site which contains the most gorgeous beach I´ve seen in the Galapagos as well as a tranquil bay surrounded by mangrove forests. We tried to go snorkeling, but the current was strong because of rocks and wind, so we enjoyed the scenery and trekked back to Puerto Ayora, the large city and tourist hub of the Islands. It was definitely strange to be in what seemed like such a large city after San Cristobal, where I can´t walk around for 15 minutes without running into someone I know. When I woke up early yesterday and walked around, I saw broken beer bottles and trash all over the Malecón and drunks hung over from partying the night before – this was a sight I can´t imagine where we live! In a lot of ways, it is nice to be home, or at least in this temporary one.

Today we are having a meeting with the volunteers to go over some of the new changes Vicente and I are trying to implement- starting drama or music or art of hula hooping classes, reducing class sizes, and other organizational issues with the foundation. I hope that we can do some of these things before we leave, before a new batch of volunteers come in and institutional memory caves in (a lesson from our days in the coop, and we are definitely missing it, and all of our family and friends! I hope you are all well.) Okay, off to work and play.

Independence, organic coffee, art (5 days ago)

Independence Parade (Desfile)
photo by Vicente

Last week we celebrated Ecuador’s independence by attending a parade (desfile) on the Malecón, or main street, of San Cristóbal. Many of Vicente and my students marched or played in it, but the independence celebration is more of a big deal on the continent than in Galapagos, I was told by abuelita (see pics of independence parade and abuelita below).

This week a group of four volunteers and I hopped a taxi (which means riding in the back of a white pickup truck here) up to a local organic coffee plantation. Though we had stupidly forgotten to call ahead and were lost for about a half hour on the winding grounds (get it, coffee grounds?… sorry), we ended up finding a worker who was nice enough to show us around the whole place. When we found him, he was pumping water into a biogas filter, which had been about a five-year running experiment at the hacienda (plantation). Instead of using limited fossil fuels, they recycle waste into methane and use it for all of the same purposes as natural gas- cooking, you name it. Our guide took us through the grounds, pointing out the seedlings and explaining to us how to tell when the beans are ripe for harvest (they turn red). Wild avocado, orange, and banana trees occasionally lined the coffee plants, and I nabbed a freshly fallen avocado while Vicente snacked on an orange along the way. All of the processes at the plantation seemed painstakingly natural, from the picking to the drying to the composting of dried grounds, guava skins, and manure into soil (this was a lengthy 20 row process, in which we could see the progression of decomposition into tierra, which was then reused on the grounds). Galapagos coffee is mainly exported, and apparently has quite a reputation worldwide. Interestingly- well sadly- enough, most of the island drinks imported powdered coffee called Nescafé, made by Nestle, which we are 90% sure owns the Third World.

Another highlight of my week came when meandering through some of the tourist shops along the Malecón, the main drag here in town. Though I´d passed a sign proclaiming `Art Gallery´ more than two dozen times in my stay here, I finally decided one afternoon to stop in and see who was there and what sort of art they were selling to tourists. Well, I quickly made a friend, an older painter with four sons (one of whom is friends with our musician-friends-students, to whom we give private classes over breakfast) who has invited me to come hang out and draw or paint with him. He sometimes works on tourist boats, painting t-shirts of Galapagos flora and fauna and sometimes works in his taller, or studio, painting from memory and the occasional photograph. I’m hoping to take him up on his offer and realize that I’ve been missing drawing and painting here, even though I do the occasional sketch in my journal. I am also thinking about possibly starting the art class that I originally wanted to teach here… we shall see, though. Right now the English and yoga classes take a lot of my time, and of course, there’s also the pull of the waves and wanting to be outside exploring…

Me and Abuelita

Isabela Island

The weekend before last a group of volunteers and Vicente and I took off for Isabela Island, the largest of the Galapagos archipelago, with at least 5 active volcanoes and the added distinction of being the only island that actually bisects the equator (for those of you unaware, at the center of the world, a toilet flushes neither clockwise nor counterclockwise, but straight down, an egg stands on its head, and other such marvels).

When we left I had been up most of the night vomiting after eating empanadas and morrocho (a creamy corn-based drink that is probably one of my favorite foods here!) and getting some kind of stomach bug. The morning of the flight I felt okay, so I decided not to cancel my trip and just see how things went. The plane we took was certainly the smallest I’ve ever had the pleasure of flying in- your knees are literally pressed up against the seat in front of you, you ride two across, and you make sure that the luggage is equally balanced, so that the plane doesn’t lilt to one side. On the way we talked to some nice Galapagueños who explained to us that the word for small boy or small little thing—chiquito—actually means butt on these crazy islands, though nowhere else (and here I thought they were all laughing with me).



Our plane landed smoothly, and the first day in Isabella we decided to walk to the Centro de Crianza (center of creation), where tortugas (giant turtles) are bred, sheltered, and eventually reintroduced into the wild—all in order to help stave off extinction for the 6 separate, endangered species of land turtles on the island. The turtles are a pretty hilarious tourist attraction, all things considered, as they don´t really do all that much and they certainly aren´t in a hurry to do the little that they do do. (see pic of 3 tortugas) Of course, it was cool to see them all together and in all stages of life (the young ones were enclosed in a mesh zoo to keep rats and other introduced species like boar and goats from eating them, with their tender shells), but being there made me wonder what the island might have been like when these giants were actually running (well, moseying) around the volcanic rocks and ferns in large numbers, without a care or predator in their world…

The sendero (trail) to the Centro was lined with mineral-deposit-laden bogs and lagoons, and, in the middle of the sendero was the occasional, disgruntled, spitting marine iguana with its spiky back and wrinkled skin. The striated colors of the mineral deposits (pinks and salmons, yellows, greens) reminded me of Yellowstone and its geyser pools, but thankfully without the rotten-egg-sulfur smell. Birds we hadn’t seen before on San Cristobal (of course, all of the Cristobaleña giant pelicans and boobies are also present on Isabela in inflated numbers, which makes for an amazing afternoon of bird-watching) were feeding and perching on driftwood, some with half-black, half-white bodies and long, ridiculously thin orange legs The absurdly long-legged, wannabe-flamingoes were having fun scaring the crap out of smaller ducks and birds also feeding in the lagoon—charging at them at full speed and making hilarious squawking noises.



After returning to the town and catching a glimpse of the famed flamingoes at dusk (this is when they come to one of the local lagoons to feed), we had a nice merrienda (dinner) and chilled in the hammocks at the hostel where we were staying. I wasn’t feeling all that hot the next morning, but we had already chartered a trip up to the world´s second largest crater (Sierra Negra) and a small volcano (Volcán Chico) on horseback, with a naturalist guide. So, with my stomach rumbling and protesting, we took the rainy taxi ride up to where the ranch was, where our horse-mules were waiting and munching on grass (we passed through at least three climates that day, the first of which, at the coast, is generally warm and sunny during the day. The second of which, in the highlands, is more like a lush, rainy forest- chilly and usually overcast, and the third of which can be quite sunny and hot again during the day, as you are on top of black volcanic rock (think of pumice stones) and lava tubes and very close to an extremely strong, equatorial sun).

Having not been horseback riding since my middle school days (and the little riding I did thanks to Erin Beltran-now-Mitchelson!!), I was a bit rusty and awkward in the saddle of those trotting half-horse-half-mules (I don’t know where those horses evolved, but they were stubborn). The riding was an adventure in itself, and I was shocked that all the jangling and jiggling actually didn’t make my stomach hurt (maybe cause I was more worried about my horse charging into the other horses, skidding in the mud, and possibly falling off the trail into the second largest crater in the world). In fact, it turned out that all the jangling and being scared out of my gourd of falling off the horse was the best thing I could have done for my stomach, since as soon as we dismounted my stomach went right back to its churning and gassing and generally being a pain in my chiquito.

We dismounted next to a beautiful tree, where we left all of our belongings except for sunblock and water and efectivo (cash), and where our well-intentioned German friend asked Vicente if black people tan, hehehe. Our naturalist guide, Richard, then took us on an extensive tour of lava tubes and colorful volcanic minerals and showed us places where the tubes had caved in due to pressure or what have you (yikes). We saw Volcán Chico, and it was good. From the top of the volcanic area, we could see the contour of much of the coast of Isabella, and it was breathtakingly good. We went back to our narnial tree and ate sandwiches and plantain chips and maracuña, which is passion fruit, which is very, very good, but my stomach continued to rumble and protest and annoy me.


Happily, my volcanic churning subsided, and I was able to enjoy the rest of our trip in relative abdominal peace, swimming with white-tipped reef sharks (which look a lot like some of the large blue fish here until you see the white-striped fin and ask yourself why en el mundo you thought it would be a good idea to go swimming with sharks in the first place- but don’t worry, it’s safe, say all), walking to a wall of tears (volcanic stone piled up by prisoners held on the island after the second world war, during the building of which many died), being led through several mangrove forests (the roots of which tangle and subsist in impossible ways, stretching toward the semi-sweet water, as they say), and finally going on a wonderful fishing trip (during which Vicente caught 3 huge fish) with our friend Andrés, whose nickname means octopus, whom we had met during our evenings in the town. To celebrate Isabella and the fishing trip, we had a barbeque with the large silver-white fish we’d caught, maduros (ripe plantains), potatoes, and caña, which is like rum, mixed with juice from a freshly stolen coconut- a drink our friend Andrés calls crazy water).

The only downfall of the trip was our brush with not being able to leave the island on time, supposedly due to a shortage of gasoline for the avionetas (airplanes). Suffice it to say, transportation between the islands can be a real headache, since you never quite know when you are being ripped off because you are a tourist and when there is a legitimate problem. You have to stand your ground as long as possible, but in the end, be willing to make a complete chiquito out of yourself, which, of course, is what we did, details aside.

After a horrific five our boat ride, during which my stomach threatened to devolver the few crackers that I had managed to consume that morning before embarking at 5 am, we woozily stepped back onto blessed tierra, our home-for-now, Puerto Baquerizo Moreno, on San Cristóbal Island. We were never so happy to go home and make oatmeal with guineos (bananas) and leche en polvo (powdered milk) and speak to our lovely adopted abuelita in Spanish and take a slight siesta before planning our classes, before returning to the daily question, do we have enough time to run to the beach before class?

Next is a picture of our first view of San Cristobal Island, where
Mike (hereto forth Vicente) and I are currently living. That is
actually a lie, our first view was from the airplane, and it was not
necessarily a comforting sight. Flying over the island we felt as
though we were entering a bizarre lunar landscape, with giant lava
rocks, barren trees, and strange land cover. In fact, we knew it
would be winter on the island, but the first sight of the dead
branches and sharp rocks was a bit disconcerting. As soon as we
landed, though, we were comforted by the overwhelming amount of life
everywhere- when our group organizer, Katie, brought us to the
foundation where we’re volunteering, we were amazed to walk across the
street and be able to watch about 30 sea lions (lobos) arguing,
playing, and scampering around. Birds are everywhere- pelicans,
boobies (yes, they really do have bright blue feet- see the picture of
the boobies scratching their heads), and bright black and yellow (and
every shade of brown) finches. There are even areas of lush green
forest- there are at least 2 very distinct climates on the island,
and if it is 80 degrees or more on the coast it can be under 60 and
raining up in the highlands (the island is also much bigger than i
imagined. As such you can’t just walk around, but must take taxis or
boats to get to certain destinations).



When we arrived at the Foundation (New Era Galapagos Foundation or NEGF),
we found out that the greatest need there was for teaching english, so
we both took on two classes starting the next week. The classes here
are completely different than classes in the US- it’s been pretty
tough to try to gain enough control to teach the kids anything, though
I think I’m finally getting the hang of it after almost a month. In
addition to a class for 11-14 year olds, I’m teaching a class for
young adults and adults (15 plus), which is the most advanced class at
the foundation. They keep me on my toes with remembering English
grammar, asking me about past participles and all other sorts of
things that I never think about here.

An aside: one of the girls in my class is shaping mike’s ´fro into a
ponytail right now, while he types emails. Sorry I had to laugh about
that. Another aside: Mike’s hair is also quite large now, and very
soft and sponge like. This just happens to coincide with the fact that
SpongeBob is the coolest thing on the island. Everyone has spongebob
everything- backpacks, pencils, t-shirts, you name it. Okay, back to
the story.



The next picture is of Maria del Carmen, the administrative assistant at the Foundation whose family we are living next to. She is holding the biggest lobster I had ever seen in my life. I swear it was more than 2.5 feet long! When I first saw it, I definitely though it was a strange Galapagan creature, so it was a bit disconcerting 2 days later when Maria invited us over for lunch, and voila! She had cut the boiled trunk of it in half, put it on a cutting board, and handed us a large black rock that they use in the kitchen to whack the exoskeleton with. I think it was actually my first time eating lobster whole like that, and it was certainly an experience. …(p.s. for those of you confused, I have been eating fish for about a year, since traveling to Japan, off and on. Fish is a main part of my traveling diet, it seems, along with rice and beans and oranges and plantains and all kinds of yummy produce and soup every day and often freshly squeezed juice - jugo fresco).

Living with Maria´s family has been really amazing. We cook in their kitchen, so we are always speaking with the adorable abuelita, the many children in the extended family (there are at least 3 families living next to one another, each with several children), and the grandfather who corrects are spanish and tells us about his sailing adventures. I will leave a link with pictures in my next posting...

Belated Updates on My Life: Quito

As you probably know by now, I have graduated from University (Brown)- yes, I did manage to finish my creative thesis, somehow- and am traveling in Ecuador, South America and then Senegal, West Africa this year. This blog will hopefully be a way for me to keep in touch with all of you lovely people whom I can´t take with me. I will be posting updates, pictures, and the occassional sketch or poem. I have a lot to catch up with already! Here we go...

The first picture is of me in Old Quito (Quito is divided into many districts, which are completely different), the colonial district with breathtaking architecture that I explored for 2 days before flying out to San Cristobal. I was on my own for the first day in Quito, but I immediately made very interesting friends and got to know some cool places in both the new and old parts of the city (for instance, an alternative cafe and handicrafts store run by an indigenous ecuadorian cooperative- I actually ran into an old friend from Brown there, small world...).