Espa�ola Journey 

San Viernes, Parte Dos 

despedidas

So as we’re getting ready to say goodbye to San Cristóbal, there are suddenly a ton of things to wrap up here… planning the next leg of our journey (we are asking everyone for advice on where to go, what to see, etc), seeing all of our friends one last time, training the new volunteers (and trying to get them to see the potential of the foundation and turn it into what it could be), trying to get to the beach one last time… and of course trying not to kill each other by spending too much time together.

So far this week we`ve gone on a picnic to the Lobería with our friends who we do yoga with in exchange for fruit and humitas (the woman who invited us has travelled much of the world, and has a half-Ecuadorian half-Swiss daughter). It was beautiful but rainy, and we tried to warm up by hula hooping and chasing the daughter around. The daughter is adorable and five years old, and she has taken quite a liking to me (she always wants me to come teach her English, though she can`t read or write or sit still very long). When we gave them our last yoga lesson last night, they surprised us with presents- beautiful souvenirs from the island, and a last humita (so sweet).

Afterward, we ran back up to our musician-friends` house to finish making a homemade pizza with them and their friends. I topped it with all kinds of yummy veggies (broccoli, zucchini, tomato, and onion) and it turned out quite good! It was nice to have dinner up there with the family one more time, and with a few of our other friends we`d met and wanted to hang out with more. After a glass of vino tinto we headed home, and today we are busy trying to figure out where to do laundry (there is no water at the house right now, of course!), which souvenirs and presents to give to whom and buy for whom. It is tough trying to remember everything (I`ve already forgotten two reuniones this week) but we are trying to keep our heads on straight and keep excited about the next leg of the journey instead of getting overwhelmed by all of the little details.

Acampar!

El fin de semana fuimos a acampar (We went camping this weekend) con unos amigos (with some friends) en su finca (in their farm) por Cerro Verde. Fue bacanísimo! (It rocked). Traemos una carpa grande, unos colchonites, comida—pan, atún, queso—, y unos instrumentos musicales (y las hula-hulas). (We brought a big tent, some sleeping mats, food—bread, tuna, cheese—, and some musical instruments (and the hula hoops).) Comemos las frutas de la finca—mandarinas, mora, guava, y limas— y caminamos al mar, a una playa que se llama Puerto Chino. (We ate the fruit of the farm—clementines, blackberries, guava, limas— and we walked to the ocean, to a beach called Puerto Chino.)

My shins hurt from walking downhill so much (downhill for about an hour), so at the end I was more than willing to brave the icy water for a quick post-hike dip. It was a beautiful and relaxing weekend, and it was nice to finally visit our friends´ farm, which we had tried to get out to see so many times. The owners are the family of musicians whom we teach English to over breakfast and have been hanging out with throughout the trip. We went with the two middle boys (15 and 19) and their friend from Quito, who we immediately connected with. (The family has friends streaming in and out of the house steadily, not to mention the fact that they themselves are always coming and going—the father is a musician who travels, and the two oldest brothers are in and out of the house and other countries). Their world is a fascinating mix of stability and change, as you always know what to expect when you walk in the door, but it is never the exact same group of friends.

In any case, as soon as we arrived at the farm and hauled all of our strange luggage up to the campsite, the fresh forest air revived us. Burros and birds squawked around us as we set up our huge, 6 person tent. Later, our friends led us on a tasty tour of the finca (farm), plucking blackberries and guava along the way. At night we built a campfire (which desperately lacked marshmallows), played cards, and settled in for the night. When putting out the fire, our friends attempted to cover the burning-out sticks with tierra, spreading thousands of small glittering red embers around on the ground that we had cleared. Looking down on it, we were struck by the beauty of the blinking mass, which seemed at times like a giant city at night, an alien landscape, or some vision of the end of the world.

The next day the middle son left for Quito, to perform with his brother and band-mates there, so it was just the four of us, and a bit more tranquil (no brother-bickering, hahaha). When we were waiting to leave the finca, we picked a bagful of mora (blackberries), which we used to make two pies on Monday (though we didn’t strain the seeds, and they were a bit crunchy!).

Back at Puerto Baquerizo Moreno, we’ve been continuing with our classes, finishing up what will be our last week at the foundation (well, I guess the hula classes will continue until the end of the month, right before we leave Galapagos). After thursday, we will say goodbye to English classes (wahoo!), finish up our yoga and hula classes, and finalize our plans for travelling on the continent. Right now we have a ticket to fly into Guyaquil on October 1st, which we will be going to change or confirm mañana, after making sure our visa extension goes through today.

At this very moment Vicente and I are attempting to practice for our second and last San Viernes Cultural performance followed by a gig at Iguana Rock, everyone’s favorite bar on Cristobal. Unfortunately, he`s having some problems with getting the songs off his ipod, but hopefully we`ll figure it all out. I think that it is time to almorzar, so ciao for now…

Lobo at the Wheel 

what not to do in the Galapagos

So wow, had a near life experience today (yes, I just watched Fight Club, but this time with Spanish subtitles). Wasn`t so sure I was gonna make it to shore. Vicente and I hopped a last-minute (gratis) ride to Española Island with a friend and neighbor who is a guide and owns a motorboat on the island. Now, when we agreed to said voyage last night, we had not taken into account the following information:

1. a free, once-in-a-lifetime adventure does not necessarily a good idea make
2. the boat that we would be taking was in fact our friend’s very own fibra (a small, 6-8 person motorboat, braving the open ocean) and not a lancha (larger, ferry-type boat that also transports tourists between islands) as we’d imagined
3. on the way back from Isabella Island (and that time we were in a larger, 14 person boat) we had vowed never again to travel por fibra, and were 90 % sure we would never have children after the first time around (wait, maybe that was a good thing… other people`s kids are nice).
4. we, well I, needed to be wearing a sports bra, which of course we (again, I) weren`t! ayayayay…
5. breakfast… not necessary when travelling in fibra. less food in stomach = better.

That being said, we were enticed by the idea of going on an adventure and seeing one of the lesser visited islands, with an albatross population (of course we were on the wrong side of the island for albatross, and only had an hour to look around). When we finally (and by finally, I mean, we weren’t so sure we were going to ever see land again finally) got to our destination and dropped the two horrified Italian tourists (who spoke neither Spanish, French, nor English, and so could not really communicate with us during the 2 1/2 hour ride there) on their cruise ship, we stepped aboard as well, since our friend was a friend of the crew. They welcomed us and fed us watermelon and mozzarella sandwiches, though I couldn’t even finish my cup of freshly squeezed guyaba juice without feeling ready to give back lunch to the sea- like a little present for being so nice to us.

Anywho, after debating what to do with ourselves for an hour, we decided to take the boat (o no, not the boat again) over to Gardener Island and snorkel a bit. There were beautiful schools of fish in every direction, though the day was a bit chilly and getting out of the water a bit painful. Our friend, who used to be a fisherman, found a small-medium-sized octopus on the side of the acantilado (cliff), and he used a pole with hook on the end to yank it off (yikes). I had never really seen an octopus in the water or being caught before, so that was an experience. I think he stopped moving quickly and hopefully wasn`t in too much pain. I guess they will be eating ceviche de pulpo tonight (a delicacy, like sushi here, but made with lemon juice).

When we settled back onto the wooden benchseats (with butt cushion, thankfully) for the way back, we were hoping for a little bit pleasanter return, since the waves had mainly been against us on the way out. No such luck… Two minutes into the voyage the boat was smacking the water again, bump, smack, ouch, bump, roll, whew, bump smack, ouch, bump, bump, whew, bump, smack, superouch… ayayay. Two very long and body-blasting hours later, we were jumping back onto blessed tierra cristobaleña. We had missed our class because the sea had been so ´bravo,` as they say. Manzanilla (chamomile) Tea and egg sandwiches had never seemed like such a good idea.

Now the scariest part of this whole journey is as follows: The night before I had dreamt of going on a very small boat (it was like a canoe, and I was sitting in the front) on a journey into the open sea with some friends, who were definitely a little bit crazy. Their boat was way too small for the trip, and I was practically sure that we were going to tip over. SO, I made them all put on a life jacket and me as well. A few minutes later our boat was surrounded by Orcas, which we were excited about (and for some reason not scared at all). They were beautifully dancing around, jumping over the boat like dolphins (we saw several dolphins swimming alongside of us on our way to Española). After a bit, though, one of the Orcas had slammed into the underside of our boat, and we all capsized, being tossed into the water alongside huge, crashing waves (at least 10 times larger than I`d ever seen in my life). Now, because we had lifejackets on, we were able to sort of bob along to the side of the ocean, where we could climb onto land (yes, this is a dream so it doesn´t make sense).

So, I told Vicente about this dream over breakfast, and of course he was a little freaked out by it, but we were pretty sure we`d be sailing the ocean in a nice large lancha, not a little fibra, and so were not too concerned about any similarities between the dream and our own voyage. It was not until a few minutes into the journey when I realized that we would be travelling to Española, across the open ocean, in our friend`s motorboat, that he wasn`t just taking us to the bigger boat we would be using. It was not until a good 10 minutes later when the freakishness of the dream and what we were doing began to set in. Ayayaya. I had a gut feeling that everything would be okay, as it was in the dream, but it really couldn`t have been too much scarier. All things considered, we will never ever ever be travelling between islands in fibra again. Ever. ever. amen.

Friends on the Island 

Mucho para decir (3 days ago...)

Note: I wrote this posting a few days ago, but my internet`s been down so I`m only posting it just now...
***
First: I am deeply sorry and confused about what is going on in our country right now, which I’m not sure I half-understand, as a result of my own isolation here and lack of (even Spanish) television (though everyone else here can’t get enough TV). Things seem like they got completely out of control... I am glad to hear about the rescue efforts that have since begun, though it is hard to believe the reports of violence against even the rescue workers and the violence against women and all of the rest... it is hard to imagine parts of the US as their own war zone, and I hope, like one of the emails that’s been passing around, this catastrophe really does force us to reconsider our country’s disparities between wealthy and impoverished, whites, immigrants, and minorities... what lives are valued and which are practically invisible and sometimes dispensable. If nothing else, it seems like the country was fairly united in their horror at the situation, and their desire to hold our representatives and president accountable to acting quickly and competently on behalf of their constituents in the face of disaster. It is hard to imagine what the residents of New Orleans and the other affected areas are facing now, in terms of rebuilding lives and loss of loved ones (not to mention possessions). I wonder how this will affect our country in the long term...

I suppose I should get on with it now, as you all have probably been eating and breathing this, and I am just now realizing how bad it was and is...

Things here are mas o menos good, classes keep us busy and weekends are filled with adventures, although the island is not so new anymore, and weekend trips to the other islands are exhausting enough to be keep us from planning too many. We are spending more time with our friends here, the musicians and other assorted friends who we’ve met from Quito and elsewhere. Though I still haven’t managed to go draw with my artist-friend yet! Grrr.

To back up to before, the hula hoop and drum performance from the friday before last went smashingly (see pics), and we are even getting paid a bit (allegedly) for the performance... we’ve also been booked for a gig at the local favorite bar, Iguana Rock, this coming weekend! Who knew?

At first I was a bit nervous stepping on stage, as there were a few hundred people there watching, and the wind was in full force (the wind off the beach makes it a bit harder to hoop), but I overcame my fear and realized that hey, half the people had seen me hoop before, and the other half probably weren’t expecting much! We danced and drummed to a Buddha Bar song, and I attempted to incorporate a bit of my bellydance workout video moves that I had learned thanks to Vena and Nina (see Bellydance for Beginners), the frighteningly smiley bellydance twins. In any case, after a close call almost dropping the hoop less than 15 seconds into the performance, I was able to incorporate most of my tricks and the moves that I had practiced. When I finally did drop the hoop toward the end, I incorporated it into the dance, got down on the ground and hooped with my feet (see pic of me with hoop on foot), which was a big hit.
Hula Foot Finale 

In the end, the crowd loved it, and I was thoroughly hot and sweaty despite the shear sleeveless shirt I’d been instructed to wear on that very chilly Cristobaleño night (the women of my house helped me for over an hour picking out a shirt, though i put my foot down when it came to the white spandex pants).

The next week I dove into trying to start a hula class for the kids here, which I have 4 kids registered for at the moment. I can’t decide if I want to advertise and have a lot of kids come, or just keep it to the 4 kids and have them make a routine and such. It’s a bit wild trying to watch all the kids (more kids inevitably are going to show up, wanting to play or what have you) and trying to teach them to hula and to dance at the same time! Whew! It’s a whole lot more interesting than teaching English, that’s for sure. I think the problem with teaching inglés is that the kids half want to learn, half are sent by their parents and think they’re too cool for school. Also, some kids just should not be sitting still for another hour of the day! In any case, I am very happy with the yoga class we’ve started teaching on sundays, and maybe also wednesdays. We are trying to figure out what to charge and such, since before we were mainly teaching the women of a local hotel whose dueña wanted to learn (in exchange for bananas, limas (like a flavorless orange), and the occasional banana bread- don’t worry, mom, it had nothing on yours). Now we are opening the class up to others and are hoping that the income will buy us food for the week and maybe the occasional cervesa. It is nice because people don’t really have that much knowledge of yoga here, so everyone is on a beginner level, and everyone is pretty excited to learn. I’ve also started a private tutoring with a lady who works in the airport here, which seems like it’s working well.

An aside: teaching yoga in Spanish is hard. Not farting in yoga class is also hard... last sunday i accidentally let a big one rip while demonstrating a spinal twist... let`s just say it took all of Vicente`s control to keep from busting un abdominale.

Aside from classes and farting, we’ve been spending a lot of time with some of our friends from here (the musicians whom we give private English lessons to in exchange for breakfast at their house), our friends who make radio programs for an independent radio station in Quito and were doing a month-long feature on the Galapagos, and another recent friend who we met on the beach one day and has loaned us amazing Spanish literature to read and has cooked veggie meat (oh how I’ve missed thee) with us at the hotel where he works and other such lovely things. We also made a turtle friend, Pépe, who is a giant tortuga that has lived with the monks at the catholic church here for decades, and can be visited and fed (cabbage, papaya) for fifty centavos, unbenounced to us (we had been here for like 2 months without realizing this). Pèpe, unlike most tortugas, is frisky and entirely unafraid of people, as he has spent most of his life eating fruits and vegetables out of their hands and the rest of his day is probably quite boring (he has no turtle mate nor kids to play with and lives in a concrete house with a feaux-lagoon to the side, under a large tamarind tree). However, when he starts bounding up to you with his triangular, papaya-stained mouth wide open, teeth ready to munch through bark, you get the urge to run away (see pic of Pépe and mouth). We had fun feeding him cabbage, but the whole experience was completely surreal.

Pépe with Papaya Mouth 


On Saturday Vicente and I hiked past la Lobería (which is a more isolated beach with a lobos population as well as lots of beautiful waves and tidepools amidst the lava rocks). We hiked the rocks around the coast up to a cliff, where I truly felt like I had been transported back in time.

Me on Loberia Hike 

Three or four species of giant birds were swooping right above our heads, iguanas perched on rocks nearby, cacti reached upwards in the distance, and in front of us enormous blue waves pounded the shore.

Though you can see all the individual birds in various places around the island, we were right up on the level of their nests, watching them from a few feet away—tons of blue-footed boobies, an orange-footed bird which makes a clucking, whiny noise, white birds with thin, origami-like tails, and enormous black (and sometimes red-breasted, when looking for a mate) frigate birds circled, swooped, and perched nearby. It was certainly an unforgettable place, one that I hope to return to with a video camera, which I’m sure will not be able to capture the unique beauty of the experience. On the way out of the beach, the originally barren looking, gray-white, lichen-covered, spiny tree-bushes had changed into golden, mustard-yellow-green, mossy ones (the lichen here often only grows on one side of a plant or rock, which means that it looks completely different from different angles). It was amazing to think that the entire seemingly barren landscape could look so lush by simply coming at it from the other direction.

Traveling, if nothing else, really does make you question your first and second and third impression of everything (as though we weren’t already cynical enough). People and plants are never what they seem. For instance, my favorite tree to hoop under on the island is a manzanillo, or poison apple, tree. It has patchy bark and bright green, plentiful leaves. It provides needed shade to an otherwise sun-stroked beach, but the sap and fruit of the tree are extremely toxic- people have died from eating the fruit when they didn’t know any better. So the same accommodating tree that I hoop under every week and that we use for shade and comfort (the roots and trunk make great sillas) could just as easily kill me were I to mistake its fruit for crab apple. Sometimes the senselessness of nature is astounding and beautiful. Being here and thinking about how the various creatures fit into this at once hostile and tranquil environment is pretty amazing. People here are also quite ambiguous (though always friendly), and I`m talking about the gringos just as much as the locals. Perhaps it`s because a lot of people travel not just to learn about different cultures and places but to get away from their former lives (whether too interesting or too boring), to reinvent themselves, to escape from themselves. It is often difficult to decide when to believe someone or when to assume that they are lying to you or at least to themselves. It is also strange how little it matters most of the time, in terms of what you actually need to know about someone to learn from them or enjoy their company.

In any case, we are beginning to think of the what comes next question, and planning how and when we will be leaving Galapagos. We have paid our rent for the month (staying on with the same family in their apartment) and will be finishing our 3-month commitment as volunteers at the foundation at the end of September... afterward, who knows... pero el continente nos llama y queremos mucho concerlo!