GALAPAGAMOS!!!

For Semana Santa, I went to the Galapagos with Jenny, Tio Alex, his brother Nate, and a couple other girls from USFQ and one of their families. We had so much fun exploring the islands and learning about all the biodiversity and the extreme conservation going on to help preserve the islands. It's so cool to think that I've been to the place where Charles Darwin first came up with the idea of adaptation and natural selection!

5 reasons why the Galapagos Islands are one of the coolest places on Earth:

1. We hung out with sea lions on the reg. We became besties. We swam together, barked together, waddled together...basically experienced the deepest bond possible between human and creature. They were hilarious! Fighting for food, showing off when they knew we were watching, cuddling up when it started to rain. There's a really good chance that I'll have a pet sea lion when I grow up!

2. We were on the equator, on a tropical island, with gorgeous white sand beaches pale blue waters. It's like the most perfect tropical paradise, but you're still in the Dor--no 5 star hotels or resorts, no fancy restaurants, no special transportation. We staying in a "hotel" (basically a hostel), rode around in the back of a truck, and ate typical Ecua food. So chill!

3. We snorkeled every day. My favorite two places were a grieta (no idea in english) formed from a fissure--the cliffs were 15 meters up on either side (perfect for climbing and jumping) and you could see almost all the way to the bottom of the water--and the love canal--the running joke on the island "entran dos y salen tres" (2 go in and 3 come out!). The love canal is where we got to snorkel with the sea lions and see giant schools of fish like the ones from Finding Nemo...I kept waiting for them to start making shapes and give me directions to P. Sherman 42 Wallaby Way, Sydney.

4. The wildlife is incredible! We saw giant turtles (including Lonesome George...he's kind of a big deal), and got to try on a 150 year old turtle shell. We saw blue-footed boobies, and made the obvious inappropriate jokes because though we may be college students, we're still too immature to let that opportunity pass. We danced with iguanas, swam with sharks (no cages, no fiber glass, no life vest....just us and Jaws), spotted penguins, and hung out with pelicans. There's nothing like it!

Hate it when you misspell something like that. Whoops.

"I Love Bobbies"

5. In so small a space, there is so much diversity in landscape. We went into a cave that had been hollowed out by lava and water. We hiked up a small mountain and got an incredible panoramic of the island. We got to hear ghost stories of the first pirates to land on the islands, see their houses carved out of the mountains, and see the figure heads they'd carved as well! And of course we spent a ton of time in the ocean at the gorgeous beaches!

Bonus: Since Jenny's birthday is in the summer (and we really wanted free dessert) we celebrated her fake Ecua cumpleanos!