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.