Santa Cruz y Floreana: From Civilization to Haunted Caves

After a very relaxing 2 weeks of traveling around the islands, I am back on San Cristóbal for about 6 weeks before returning to the states. I know I keep mentioning this, but I still can’t believe how quickly this semester is going by as course registration approaches in early April and I have to start thinking about finding a job over the summer. For that matter, I have to start thinking about what I want to do after the next school year…

The islanders have a lot of pride in where they come from; the people from Santa Cruz think Santa Cruz is the best island and people from San Cristóbal think San Cristóbal (or apparently just Cristóbal) is the best. Santa Cruz has some redeeming qualities, but I definitely like Cristóbal with its quaint town of Puerto Baquerizo Moreno and the beaches that are easily accessed. Walking through the streets of Puerto Ayora on Santa Cruz, I could feel myself going through some degree of culture shock as I rejected the larger town. There are actual lines painted on the streets and we were pampered with air conditioning! There are lines on the streets in Puerto Baquerizo Moreno, but Puerto Ayora actually has traffic with taxis and a very large amount of tourists. Walking around the town during our first afternoon there we saw shops that held a variety of wares including sweaters, ponchos, and scarves reminiscent of the markets of Otavalo and Quito as well as wood carvings of the creatures of the Galápagos.

The island of Santa Cruz holds more to see than Cristóbal. That Tuesday we started our week's adventure by heading over to the Charles Darwin Research Station to listen to talks on the fishing industry in the Galápagos and on the World Wildlife Fund in the Galápagos. The Charles Darwin Research Station is probably most well known for its tortoise inhabitant Lonesome George. Lonesome George is received his name because he is the last of his species. The station is trying to get him to reproduce with females of a similar species so that his kind does not go entirely extinct with his death. None of the attempts at mating have been successful thus far, which may be in part due to the fact that when we were there Lonesome George was trying to mate with a female that was situated sideways to him. The station is doing all they can to help out the tortoises, including carrying them to the highlands during the threat of the tsunami. At the station there are some land iguanas, which are much larger than marine iguanas. 

We had our afternoons free and that afternoon most of the group went over to Tortuga Bay. It is hands down the most beautiful beach I have ever been to. The name Tortuga Bay comes from the sea turtles that lay their eggs in the sand dunes at the beach. If it had several palm trees for shade then it would be the perfect tropical beach. The sand is bright white and feels like finely sifted flour. The water, due to the sand, is a light green-blue and the waves are perfect for swimmers and surfers. At one end there is a tide pool that fills with fish and crabs near a stand of mangroves. Although it takes about half an hour worth of walking to get to the beach, it is more than worth it. The path is hot but it is also green and beautiful during the rainy season (now). Also, the long walk to the beach probably keeps all of the tourists from flocking to it, keeping it quiet and clean. (There is no way to drive to this beach.)

From spending the afternoon at the beach to the next morning up in the highlands, on Wednesday we went to a privately owned farm where they are working on sustainable organic agriculture and trying to eradicate the mora (blackberry) bushes that take over everywhere. It’s a shame that mora is as invasive as it is because the products that are made from it are delicious. There is a restaurant on Santa Cruz where they sell delicious mora sorbet. I feel a bit guilty enjoying such a treat after spending time attacking the plants with a machete. In different groups we took turns working with the soil, weeding out gardens, and trying to get rid of some of the invasive species that cover the highlands. The highlands of Santa Cruz are different from the highlands of Cristóbal because Santa Cruz has a higher elevation and thus more vegetation zones than does Cristóbal. Working at the farm was rewarding and made me think again about volunteering with the World Wide Organization of Organic Farming (WWOOF). 

Thursday was the most adventuring that my class did on Santa Cruz. We wandered back up into the highlands to visit sinkholes, lava tunnels, more tortoises, and the highest point on Santa Cruz. The sinkholes we visited were made around the same geological era and are thus named “los gemelos” or “the twins.” There are two giant craters that are now covered in vegetation and a smaller sinkhole that doesn’t look like much more than a hole in the ground but it goes down many meters. Our guide told us about how the goats that had been introduced to Santa Cruz managed to escape the dogs that were chasing after them by jumping down into the sinkholes and climbing back out the other side. Goats have been one of the biggest problems on the Galápagos islands because they eat everything, depleting the scarce resources for the native and endemic animals.

If I were to pick one word to describe all of my experiences in this country, it would be “humbling.” From the power of the sinkholes we traveled a short ways to walk through a short lava tunnel. At the beginning the ceilings were a bit low until we crawled through an opening that was a couple of feet tall and emerged to a greater opening. One of the most amazing things was the structural integrity of the tunnels. Walking through them just reminded me of how great natural forces are. There were also small plants that were growing where each electric light had been set up for tourists like us. And the beginnings of stalactites that grow about a centimeter every century. Stalactites and stalagmites can be found throughout the world because the continents are all much older than the Galápagos archipelago. The islands never grow old due to their positioning on the Nazca tectonic plate that is sliding underneath the South American tectonic plate. In other words, the islands are sinking over time.

From the lava tunnels we continued our adventure of the day by going to see some wild tortoises in their natural habitat. There are several privately owned areas in the highlands and the area that we went to allows tortoises to roam. We found a tortoise that very much enjoyed the taste of the introduced guava plant and another very large tortoise that was content to munch on some grass. Our adventures for the day were concluded with a walk up to the top of media luna, the highest point in Santa Cruz. From there we could see Puerto Ayora as well as observe the quinine (cinchona in Spanish) trees that had been eradicated by an herbicide and were left standing. One of my classmates mentioned how the dead forest now looks like all of the dead truffula trees from Dr. Seuss’s The Lorax. Quinine is useful to fight off malaria; however, there is no threat of malaria in the Galápagos and quinine trees are invasive. Luckily the forest was controlled and the native miconia forests are slowly making their comeback. 

That Friday was a whole new form of adventure as we traveled over the island of Floreana. Floreana is famous for the families that settled there back in the 1800s. The most famous settler was a German woman who came to the island with her 3 lovers. They were all found mysteriously dead in some way, but the body of the Baroness has never been found. Being on Floreana gave me a sense of chills, which was probably all in my head from knowing these stories. Pirates also came to the island to stock up on food in the form of tortoises and fresh water running through the porous rocks. On the islands we visited the caves where one of the founding families first stayed and crossed the path of the carving that the father made those many decades ago. We also went snorkeling off of the coast of Floreana, where there were rays, fish, and sea turtles. There were also sharks, but I did not see my first shark until returning to Tortuga Bay and seeing a baby black tip in the shallows. 

Throughout our free time on Santa Cruz and our traveling, I have seen other interesting things. In the university building there is a wall that has several pictures of the Galápagos hanging up, including one that shows a man cutting up fish while there is a sea lion and some pelicans at his feet. We saw this exact seen in Santa Cruz where people sell their fish and are constantly hounded by pelicans, sea gulls, and that one sea lion. I wonder if the sea lion might be someone’s adopted pet because it lies at the feet of the people and is the only sea lion I have seen on the land of Santa Cruz. (Sea lions also really enjoy docks. Or anything that is close to the water and may provide a good spot for a nap in the shade.) At this same scene there was a beautiful show of rainbows after a heavy rainstorm. We also saw dolphins on our way to Floreana!

This semester continues to amaze me and really Santa Cruz and Floreana were nothing compared to Isabela, which I will write about in my next post. Never have I set foot on such an amazing island and I am determined to make it back there someday. I hope all is well at home and that spring may make its way north sometime soon. Best wishes to all!

Giant Tortoises, Bike Rides, Tsunami Days, and More

In elementary school I had a hurricane day when there was no school because the winds and rain were too strong. This is fairly understandable when you live on the eastern coast of the United States. Well, now that I have been living in the Galápagos for about 6 weeks, I have experienced a tsunami day. Due to the 8.9 magnitude earthquake in Japan yesterday morning, President Correa declared a state of emergency for the country of Ecuador and everything was shut down. I was confused because I woke up thinking that I had to get to school to finish working on a presentation and take a midterm that I had been unable to take the day before due to medical reasons. (I will explain later in this post.) However, my host-mom was trying to tell me that I did not have to go to school that day and that we were going to be heading up to the highlands at 12 until that evening. I still didn’t understand what was going on until my host dad mentioned “tsunami.”

I made my way to the school in order to get breakfast and see if there was anything in my locker that I wanted to bring with me to the highlands. I also wanted to speak with my friends in English to fully understand what was going on with the situation. That is when I learned about the earth quake in Japan and the fact that Ecuador could be hit by a tsunami therefore the whole island had to head up to the highlands. 

 

I actually very much enjoyed the tsunami day. Aside from the fact that we didn’t have school and I didn’t have to give a presentation or take a midterm, I saw it as a very interesting cultural experience and I was able to meet other members of my host-family. My host-family is actually quite large and I may have more host-siblings/less host-siblings than I initially realized because some of them are older and people who might actually be host-cousins may be living with me. I would have wandered and taken pictures if my foot had not been bothering me and taken part in the games, but observing the interactions of the people that were in our clearing was interesting and much of the day was rainy. The clearing was just that… a clearing that was down a dirt road where there were shelters and hammocks. There was food and beer and volleyball and soccer. I mostly read and watched what was going on and would talk to people when they came up to me. There was also a tourist couple that spoke English but kept to themselves. 

 

We ended up being in the highlands from noon until around 9 at night, which meant I simply read and went to bed when we got back to my home-stay where there was absolutely no damage. The next morning I wandered down to the university expecting to see the beach changed in some way or the streets flooded with seawater. The boardwalk may have been flooded the night before because there were trash bags bundled up on the streets. The line of the tides seems to have changed a little on the beach across the street from my school, but other than that there was no notable damage from any large waves.

I know I had promised to write more about Cumbayá and the island before I leave for more 2-week siesta from San Cristóbal; however, this week did not go as planned at all. Wednesday ended up being a sick for me including taking a trip to the doctor’s office on the naval base because after a night with a fever I woke up with a swollen ankle and a rash on my leg. There is nothing to worry about. My foot that has had pitting edema for the past 3 years is more swollen than normal, but everything is slowly getting better thanks to the help of some antibiotics, ibuprofen, and a shot of penicillin. My only worry is that I may not be able to go on all of the excursions in Santa Cruz, but I’ll make it all work somehow. Being sick in a completely different culture is certainly interesting. When I had a fever, my host-mom rubbed half a lemon on my forehead, as well as ice and cold water. Now with my foot she has had me soak my foot in chamomile tea. I don’t think there are any guinea pigs on the islands to rub over my foot though. 

 

Before I set off tomorrow, I would like to tell you about what I’ve been up to for the past few weeks. The last thing I told you about in San Cristóbal included the excursion to Leon Dormido, Isla Lobos, and Puerto Grande. The weekend after that we went on another excursion with the same class that included going to la Galapaguerra, where the giant tortoises are kept on San Cristóbal, el Junco, which is the only freshwater lake in the Galápagos, and Puerto Chino. We actually started the day by going up to el Junco and looking at the different vegetation that grows up there as well as viewing the frigate birds taking their baths. There are two species of frigate birds on the Galápagos: the magnificent frigate bird and the great frigate bird. They lack an adaptation to the ocean in that they cannot dive into the ocean because their feathers don’t have the correct oils protecting them. This means that to clean themselves they need freshwater so they go up into the highlands and up into the clouds when it is a rainy day. They also are kleptoparasites, which means the steal food from other animals, particularly pelicans and boobies, since they cannot fish for themselves. 

 

La Galapaguerra is, as I mentioned above, where the tortoises are kept. This is the tortoise reserve for this island. It includes raising baby tortoises and a fence to keep the tortoises in but otherwise the guides there look after the tortoises and allow them to wander. They are interesting creatures to watch because they are so big and I find it really difficult to imagine them drifting 600 miles off of the coast of the mainland to reach the islands. On our upcoming trip I believe we will be making a visit to see Lonesome George, who is the last tortoise of his species. During the tsunami warning he was evacuated as well because the Galápagos takes great pride in him and are trying to at least preserve his genes by having him mate with females of very similar species. Thus far this has been unsuccessful, but it is possible that one day a Lonesome George hybrid may be born. Puerto Chino is a beautiful beach that is across the island. The sand there is white and the ocean water so clear, but there are also many horse flies and they don’t go away! While we were there, there were the remains of a baby blue whale that had washed up at least a couple of months ago. I didn’t go over to the bones to look at them because of the flies, but you could see them from a distance and there were a lot of them. 

 

My next adventure was biking down from near el Junco with my next class and taking the time to look at the plants along the way. This course, my third course in the GAIAS program, is an introduction to the native and introduced flora (plants) of the Galápagos. I have learned more than I thought I learned and must still do more work for the class before we head out tomorrow, but I feel that I could have learned much more had my professor not been summoned to go to Tiputini (yes, the Amazon) for a weekend and I hadn’t been sick. The bike ride was really beautiful to be able to look down on the town where I walk around everyday and see the green of the trees, the town, and the blue of the ocean behind it. Plus, I hadn’t been biking since last summer and it felt good to do something active for a day that wasn’t swimming, even if most of the activity was downhill.

Just to give you some plant knowledge about the Galápagos: there are not that many species of plants here, but there is a high uniqueness amongst the plants in that many of them are endemic to the islands. There is also a very large problem with introduced plants, no matter if they were accidentally introduced or brought here for cultivation. Some of the biggest problem plants are the mora (raspberry), the guava, and the guayava. There are also a lot of flowers that have been brought here for aesthetic reasons that are not non-invasive, such as the hibiscus. There are groups of volunteers in charge of ripping out mora from the highlands in an attempt to eradicate the plant from the island. It may seem futile, but at least something is being done. 

 

Due to my professor going to Tiputini for the weekend, we spent Friday (as well as Monday) with the other group of students who are studying people, politics, and the environment. On Friday we went up to the recycling plant, which really was not much different from the recycling plants at home except it included organic waste and they have to send their recycling to the mainland to sell it or it would just pile up here. Once again, it is not the most effective system, but at least there is a recycling program going on at all. After the recycling plant we went over to the wind turbines. There are 3 giant wind turbines up in the highlands that you can actually see across the way from el Junco. These turbines supply a good deal of energy to the island and I believe are still in their experimental phase to see if the island should put up more turbines. Standing next to the turbines reminded me of standing next to some of the trees in Tiputini because of how large they are. It is amazing that we can construct something so large and actually have it doing something good for our environment. For a community of no more than 8,000 people to have 3 wind turbines is great compared to the lack of turbines back home.

That is most of what I’ve been up to over the past few weeks, other than celebrating my 21st birthday in the Galápagos by snorkeling for a good chunk of the day. Actually, we saw about six or seven sea turtles, including, I kid you not, one that was large enough to sit on its back if that what was at all legal. There were also cool fish and sea lions that briefly came to check us out. I have been swimming so often here that I am going to severely miss the ocean when I am in Burlington for the summer. I missed it last year badly enough. But I suppose the Atlantic off of the coast of New England is a bit colder than the Pacific off of the coast of the Galápagos this time of year and you cannot snorkel as well there. 

 

There was also a day when I took my own time to go to lunch by myself and wander around the boardwalk a bit taking really tourist-y pictures. I often feel self conscience about taking pictures and feeling like too much of a tourist. I have actually had Ecuadorians ask me for directions to places before or had tourists ask about shops around the area. The pelican picture was taken across the street from where I was eating lunch. It was perched above a group of sea lions that were napping underneath a bench. Then near the board walk there sea lions playing in the water with an empty gallon container. This was cute and very depressing at the same time because these are supposed to be pristine islands and there is litter all around us. I wish I had more power to change some of the ways of what is going on here and how to make things more efficient. The other two pictures include one of the board walk and one of a lizard that might be a lava lizard, but might not be. I have become slightly obsessed with the lizards in general and get really excited when I see lizards in the morning on my walk to school.  (Don't forget to enlarge the pictures!)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I hope everyone is doing well at home and if you know anyone who is suffering through the natural disasters of Japan and the surrounding area that they are doing well, too. Tomorrow we head off to Santa Cruz for 5 days, then to Isabela for 4 days, and then we will be on a boat cruise for 4 days so I will be out of touch for about 2 weeks. I hope to come back with some awesome pictures and stories to share with you all! (Here is one of my favorite sunset pictures I have taken thus far.)

 

Tiputini Part 1: The Rainless Rain Forest Adventure Begins

I have been living amongst the Galápageños for about 3 weeks now and it is certainly an interesting experience.  The island is still beautiful, despite the exchange between large amounts of rain and very hot sun. I think bad weather is something I can deal with when I am living on the Enchanted Islands. Last week was exciting as it involved fiestas for the whole week in order to celebrate the Galápagos. It included the crowning of la reina de San Cristóbal (the Queen of San Cristóbal), a beach fashion/talent show, a music festival, and a lot of performers and partying at the town center to end the week. By a lot of partying, I mean some of my classmates stayed out until 6 in the morning because the town was still celebrating.

Last week I also started volunteering at CIMEI. I don’t really know what CIMEI stands for, but it is a program to take care of the animals on the island and to try to get the domestic and wild animals to live in harmony. Nothing in Ecuador seems to ever make sense and so most of the time I am at CIMEI I have no idea what is going on. I know that they will be doing surgery to remove a tumor from a tortoise but they won’t help an abandoned sea lion pup because that would be going against nature. There also isn’t a humane society on the islands so unless the stray dogs are adopted by people on the island, they are put down. A vet comes from the mainland in varying intervals to volunteer with Darwin Animal Doctors although the one vet that actually lives on the island also works there. There are also other volunteers at CIMEI and no one seems to ever understand what is going on there. It is a confusing place, but I’m hoping it will become a fulfilling experience. I will certainly enjoy understanding the workings of the humane society and the aquarium at home.

Here I am going to go back in time to quite a few weeks ago in order to write about my experiences at the Estacion de Bioversidad Tiputini or the Tiputini Biodiversity Station (TBS). The strangest thing about visiting the Amazon Rainforest for 5 days was that it didn’t rain the entire time we were there. On the plus side of it not raining meant there were very little mosquitoes to deal with, but the dry weather also meant the animals were less active. (The mosquitoes actually aren’t that big of a problem in the section of the Amazon that we were in because malaria does not exist there.) First, let me give a little background of the TBS. Bare with me if I have already mentioned this information in a previous entry.

The Tiputini Biodiversity Station is in a part of the Ecuadorian Amazon that is the Yasuní National Park. The Yasuní is made up of 1 million hectares of land yet there are only 7 park rangers for the entire area. As you may imagine, this creates problems with regulating the park. Currently a major portion of that regulation is done by the oil companies who are extracting oil within the park under the legalities that say extraction is in the interest of the public. There are 2 roads that run through the Yasuní, one that is so highly regulated that we had to go through a security checkpoint on our way into the rainforest, and one that is not really regulated. There is a large amount of oil that has been found in another part of the Yasuní (the ITT). Ecuador is currently asking for money from other nations that sums to half of the amount that they believe they would make from that oil. Although this may seem like a good idea at the present time, if that oil is ever extracted then Ecuador must pay that money back. For a country that is not wealthy and is in debt, this plan could become a disaster very quickly. Also, once the oil companies leave Ecuador, they are going to move on to mining. Environmentalists, ecologists, etc. are trying to find alternatives to these destructive economies. 

One thing I find very impressive about Ecuador is that they have some of the best indigenous rights in the world. There are untouched tribes left in the Ecuadorian Amazon that live in other sections of the rainforest. There is a tribe, the Waorani, who live within the Yasuní. The culture of these peoples is changing as they adjust to the contact with the modernized society. They now live around the roads that have been built, which allow them to switch from nomadic to sedentary. They are also hunting bush meat for their food as well as to sell on the black market. One of our assignments while we were in Tiputini was to vie for $1 million as non-governmental organizations and to keep in mind the different people that are involved with the Yasuní National Park. All 3 of the groups focused their proposals on making the Waorani more sustainable through education and, in my group’s case, by helping them to set up an artisan market.

As I may have mentioned before, during my 5-day-stay at Tiputini I saw over 65 species of reptiles, mammals, birds, insects, and plants. The mammals were very limited and the insects/other bugs were very plentiful. They included such wonderful creatures as tarantulas, scorpions, pseudo-scorpions, and poisonous snakes. My adventures also involved me seeing capybaras, caiman (which are related to crocodiles), scarlet and blue macaws, red macaws, parrots, and blue morpho butterflies. I have never seen such an array of wildlife in such a short amount of time in my life.

The journey to TBS was an interesting experience by itself as it involved quite literally a 20-minute bus ride, a 20-minute plane ride, a 2-hour boat ride, a 2-hour “bus” ride, and another 2-hour boat ride. I cannot remember when we left school, although it was probably around 7 in the morning in order to take a bus to the airport in Quito. The international airport at Quito is actually quite small considering it is the capital’s airport although they are building a new one some ways outside of Quito. The flight to Coca literally took 20 minutes. It was possible to see some of the massive rivers and the small town that is Coca as we flew into the tiny landing strip. As soon as we landed we were dealing with the heat and humidity that is the rainforest, not to mention the blaring sun. From the airport we drove over the Napo River where we began real Amazon adventure.

At the dock of the Napo River there were small monkeys running around that were probably someone’s pets. At the dock we were loaded onto a canoe-type boat along with 20-something other students from Saint Olaf in Minnesota. They were in Ecuador for the January term checking out the three different ecosystems of the Galápagos, the cloud forest, and the rain forest. It was pleasant to have other people to interact with after being with the same 20 people for the past couple of weeks; however, there were conflicts with having so many people at the station such as tour guides being in short supply and observation towers being sort of small. The trip there was full of everyone taking pictures and (hopefully) enjoying the amazing new experience.

After navigating the Napo River, we arrived at the check station by the oil company that I mentioned earlier. We stayed here for a bit before we went through security and climbed aboard various vehicles to be taken to the Tiputini River. On the “truck” ride there, we saw beautiful butterflies and the various flora that make up the rain forest. Our truck also worked as a sort of bus ride for kids going home from school for lunch as well as a transportation device for supplies that were brought to TBS. These supplies included large amounts of bananas (or some variation), water, and other food. We climbed onto the boat along with the supplies and our luggage and took off for another 2 hours to go down the Tiputini River.

The Napo River is wide and open. On it we saw tour boats, the police patrolling, and fisher boats or rafts. There were solitary standing large trees and an oil refinery that we were able to see from the boat. The Tiputini River is narrower and the banks are covered in forest. There were also large trees standing, but more of them and with more epiphytes hanging from them. There were turtles jumping off of logs and a beautiful white bird (possibly an egret) that stayed in front of our boat for a large portion of the ride. When we finally arrived at TBS, we discovered some steps that led up to what would be our dining room for the next 4 days. We were greeted by one of the managers of the station and led to our cabins, that not only included flushing toilets, but cold water showers as well. The station includes a lab area where the researchers work, a library with dry boxes for electronic equipment, separate cabins for the researchers, and trails that lead to a myriad of places. The food at the station was also delicious and included this fruit called granadilla that you make a whole in and suck the seeds out. The seeds are crunchy and covered with a juicy, slimy coating. They look like tadpoles but taste wonderful.

Our first full day at the Tiputini station included an experiment with feces, climbing a 150 foot tower, swimming in the Tiputini River, playing equaball and soccer, and a night hike. Although all of the trips for my course on tropical ecology were more like vacations, there was some schoolwork involved. My professor brought with him feces from his dog that we used to set up experiments based on biodiversity, interspecies interactions, and others. Therefore, for about an hour or an hour and a half, we stood in the Amazonian Rainforest watching fecal matter and the bugs that were attracted to it. My group’s experiment actually included a nest of ants that were relentless against anything that came near their mound and chased off several large dung beetles. The experiment did not take as long as it may have, which meant that we had time to explore more. This is what brought us to the observatory tower.

45 meters tall roughly translates into 150 feet tall. The observatory tower is made of very strong steel and includes a platform that is at the top of a kapok tree that is just as tall. The kapok tree is magnificent enough that there is a children’s book written about it. Climbing that tower is one of the hardest things I have done in my life because I have a fear of heights that I never realized is quite so paralyzing. I did make it to the top and would do so twice more during our stay. From the top there is an amazing view because the kapok tree is an emergent tree, which means it has grown taller than most of the surrounding canopy. You can see far and hear far as well if you are there for long enough and stay quiet enough.

After lunch we were given a free day to do as we pleased, partially because sharing the station with the other group meant we did not have any guides with whom we could wander into the forest. Our professors did offer to take us on a hike to a lake, but we all chose to go swimming in the tributary of the Amazon and have a relaxing afternoon. Swimming in the river was a lot of fun and we all walked away without our urethras being parasitized by a fish that is attracted to the ammonia in urine. There are actually very few cases of this fish parasitizing humans, but when it does it is absolutely necessary to have surgery to remove it, no small feat when you are in the middle of the Ecuadorian rainforest.

Down by the place where we are allowed to go swimming there is an Ecuaball net. Ecuaball is like volleyball but it is played with a soccer ball and the net is higher than a volleyball net. Also, Ecuadorians are on average shorter than Americans so it is very difficult for one to spike over the net. Because of these differences, it is possible to catch the ball in your hands for a short amount of time and push it over the net rather than set it by flicking it with your fingers. When we got tired of playing Ecuaball, we moved on to playing barefoot soccer and using chairs as goal posts. I am terrible at soccer, but this was also a lot of fun and we managed to rope some of the staff of the station into playing with us.

An interesting point about being at a research station in the middle of relative nowhere is the amount of supplies that they have. They had plenty of food and water for us, but things such as books were short-handed and the electricity was only on at a point in the beginning of the day and another few hours at night. This means charging camera batteries can be difficult and sometimes taking showers by headlamp. The lack of electricity plus the amount of activities that we did meant we had no problem going to bed at a reasonable hour, especially when we had to be at breakfast at 6:30 every morning.

By a reasonable hour to sleep I mean around 10 or 11 at night. Since dinner was at 7 in the evening, we had plenty of time to wander around in the dark, which our professors gladly let us do near the station and into the forest with them. On this night hike we wandered into part of the forest and searched for any kinds of life we could see. The differences between the night and day sounds and activities are immense. It is always possible to hear more than you can see in the forest. At night the noises are almost deafening. Outside of our cabins we could hear what sounded like a young monkey calling out to its fellows. In the forest we were also able to see large bugs that looked exactly like leaves, the blue morpho butteflies resting underneath a leaf and relying on its mimicry to keep it safe, and an iguana. The iguana I found by staying a bit farther behind everyone and looking straight at the reptile on the path. Do you see the frog in the picture below the iguana picture?

 Although I may be leaving out some details and could probably write twice as much as this, I do not want you, reader, to get tired as you may already be from this entry. It is also not as easy to upload posts and pictures here as the Internet is slower and much more sporadic here than on the mainland of Ecuador. The fact that I still have decent access to Internet is still astounding to me. My parents pointed out that the video of our communication via Skype was clearer on the islands than it was on the mainland. These Enchanted Islands are still enthralling and I hope to come back one day and visit this land. I also hope that they do not change much more than they already have, although I believe that more human migration here is inevitable. 

As always, I hope all is well at home, wherever that may be for you and that you are enjoying these blog entries. I will do my best to upload several more before I am gone for a couple of weeks, once again hopping from adventure to adventure. (I'm sorry that this formatting is a little off, but don't forget to enlarge the pictures by clicking on them!) Here is a sunset picture on the Tiputini River.