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!
No comments:
Post a Comment