We’re in the Galapagos! We’ve been here for about two weeks, so it’s been quite a while since I updated this, sorry. But I’ve been journaling periodically, so I’ll copy and paste some of it here.
Day 2
We have reached the Galapagos. Jasmine had the window seat on our way here, and as the plane landed, she turned to me and said, “I was expecting it to be a little greener.” I looked out the window, and I thought I was back in Arizona. Desert. Cactus. Brown. But when we got off the plane, we could see the turquoise ocean, and let me tell you, a desert scene with a tropical ocean background is a rare and amazing view!
We were picked up by the volunteering agency, showed around the island a bit, and then driven to the farm. The farm is in the highlands, where it’s lush and green.
Today we spent hours whacking away at a plant (which, fun fact, is used to make tequila), in order to return some turtles to the area. It was hard, hot work, so those turtles had better be happy!
Later in the afternoon, we pulled weeds and picked yucca and papaya.
Right now there are ten volunteers at this farm, and Jasmine and I are the only Americans. It’s a mix of Norway, Sweden, Germany, Poland, and Japan, which makes for a fun and interesting mix of Spanglish. We all work well together, shelling coffee beans (grown on the farm), whacking invasive plants with machetes, planting vegetables, and picking fruit, and have been learning about each others cultures. It’s fun to cook side by side and glance over at what the other countries are making. They all use ketchup for everything.
Day 3
Today we hiked to the top of a hill to collect mule poop and bring it back down to mix with soil for planting. I had thought that when Luis described what we would be doing that it was a joke, but it wasn’t! We scooped poop! We took it back to the greenhouse, scooped it into little plastic bags, and planted in it!
Later tonight we had an international meal, where everyone made a different dish from their country. Ecuador made really good fish and an avocado salad, Sweden+Germany made a potato salad, Japan made some oriental fish stuff, and Norway made rice pudding. Everyone worked hard to make their best, and brought their dishes to the table with pride, but Jasmine and I fell a little short. Team America made sautéed vegetables, which would have been alright, but we didn’t proportion right, so we ended up with just a small bowl of lousy looking legumes. Jasmine’s excuse was, “What? Americans don’t cook. We just go to Taco Bell!” She was kidding of course.
Day 4
Jasmine and I have a new roommate, which makes three in our room. Her name is Hannah, she’s from Washington D.C., and we are thrilled because she also worked in a cannery in Alaska for the past two summers. The cannery is a culture of its own, so when you find someone who has also experienced cannery work, it’s really exciting. Alaska is one of Jasmine and my favorite subjects to talk about, so it’s really fun to have someone who knows our lingo, can relate with our stories, and has stories of her own. We talk about the horribly long hours, how our feet go numb and we don‘t get feeling back until a month after we leave, how cold it is, and how little we shower, but for some reason after talking about our two months of misery, at least one of us sighs and says, “I just love Alaska…” and the rest of us chime in, “yeah, I can’t wait to go back.”
Day 7?
Today we walked up the road with pick axes and shovels to meet a man named Jorge. Once we got there, we were given big plastic pipes, which we carried on our shoulders like crew shells, farther up the road, up and down hills, through mud, through tall grass with fallen logs and other treacherous obstacles, to a small clearing. We took a few hours to dig a trench, and then laid down the piping, the new water line. At just over one degree latitude on the Galapagos, the sun was brutal and draining. But it was a good cause, it felt good to work hard, and by the end we all felt accomplished.
I’m really liking this place so far- it has a good variety. I’ve been here for a week and already I have ridden invasive plants, picked yucca and papaya, planted watermelon, shelled coffee, collected seeds of indigenous plants, milked a cow, laid a water line, played with children from the community, and collected mule poop.
Day 12
Saturday morning. Woke up early to go snorkeling. We pulled ourselves into wetsuits and walked down to the pier, where a boat met us to take us to take a little cove with clear water. It wasn’t very deep, so it was easy to see the bottom. There were loads of sea anenomies, and we saw one stingray, but there was more excitement above the surface, where there were blue-footed boobies, sea iguanas, and baby sea lions. After paddling around for a bit, we hauled ourselves back into the boat, and went to Kiki Rock, which is well known for having lots of marine-life, specifically sharks. One of the volunteers went scuba diving at Kiki Rock last week and saw twelve hammer-heads. I had been excited to see sharks until we actually got to Kiki Rock and were told to jump in! I jumped in, dawned my mask, and put my face in the water, anxious as to what I would see. Of course the first thing I saw was a shark. It was pretty close, and swimming towards me. I screamed a little bit into my snorkel. But the fear lasted for about half a second as I reminded myself that sharks are rarely aggressive, and this one wasn’t too big. I figured I could take it down if I needed to (yeah right). I swam past the shark and looked a little deeper, to find about six huge manta rays. They were gracefully gliding around each other, they were like ocean butterflies. I later talked to Nick, a volunteer who is a former dive instructor. He couldn’t believe that we had seen manta rays. He said it took one of his friends over a thousand dives before he saw his first manta ray, and we had just seen them snorkeling! And a swarm of them, too! So that was pretty cool.
Day 14
This morning we were told we would be working in the garden at the school. We walked a short distance up the dirt road to the school, where I expected I would be picking tomatoes, weeding a bit, and perhaps planting other vegetables. But the garden didn’t exist yet. We were led to a small field of weeds and each handed a machete, and we worked for three and a half hours to clear the space of weeds.
When I pull weeds at home, my dad always tells me to MAKE SURE to get the roots, so that they don’t grow back. But in this garden we were just cutting and chopping at them. I asked if we needed to be pulling out the roots but was told no, which led me to the question, “So couldn’t we be doing the same thing with a lawn mower?” It reminded me of in India, when we drove past a soccer field with women literally cutting the grass with a pair of scissors.
After a break in the afternoon, we were once again handed machetes and told to chop down the Guava trees. I looked down at the thin machete, and then to the thick trunks of the guava trees, and asked, “Don’t you have an axe? Or a saw?” It kind of sucked. I can maybe understand not having a lawn mower, but I’m thinking saws and axes are pretty primitive tools. `
The men chopped down the trees and the girls chopped up the trees, cutting off the branches and making a burn pile. I sloppily slaughtered away at branches. I had horrible aim with the machete, and hit a different place every time. I would chop at a branch for at least fifteen minutes and only make a dent less than half-way through. Maybe it’s just that I’m not by nature a very angry person, and therefore was too nice in my swings, maybe it was the angle I at which I was swinging, or maybe I’m just downright weak, but I could not cut the stupid wood. Then Carlos, one of the hired help on the farm, would laugh, take the machete out of my hand, and chop up the entire tree in one, maybe two swipes, as if he were simply chopping vegetables.
Day 17
This morning we once again trudged up the muddy mountain to, as usual, machete. Our first week was filled with variety, with different activities every day, but now we machete, machete, and machete, with the only variety being what and where we’re machete-ing Monday it was grass and weeds, Tuesday it was Trees, Wednesday it was a different type of tree… Today we hiked off the trail into tall grass that towered over our heads, to a group of trees that were being smothered by the grass. Blonde grass hung from the branches like the hair falls on Cousin It’s shoulders. We began chopping away, giving Cousin It a hair cut and giving the ground a mow, meanwhile the ants and mosquitoes gave us nothing but havoc. The ants seemed to jump from the trees and the mosquitoes swarmed around us, taunting us with their loud hums and more than occasionally chomping on any exposed skin.
It rained and washed our skin, but the wind never blew to cool us off, making the air humid and muggy. I didn’t particularly like this work, but it was nice to be able to see our progress. When we started there was tall grass everywhere, you couldn’t even see the trees, and when we were done, the area was completely clear; the trees could breathe and there was even a nice area of dirt around them to drop their seeds later.
After working again in the afternoon, Hannah and Jasmine and I decided to take advantage of being in a tropical location and walked up the road in search of fruit. We found a few guayabas (Spanish for Guava) and some Guavas (Spanish for some type of long green fruit that looks like a cactus without spines on the outside, and has a white, marshmallow type fruit on the inside that tastes like banana and coconut. Really confusing, I know). We spotted the Guavas off the side of the road, and climbed through a barbed wire fence (it was still our farms property) into the cows’ territory, dodging our way through poop. The Guavas grow high in a tall tree, so we had to get a little creative on how to retrieve them Jasmine and I hung from branches, pulling them down and lowering them far enough for Hannah to beat the fruit down with a huge stick. We were quite a sight. Even the cows watched. We beat the branches, sometimes missing by miles and sometimes hitting our target, but by the end our efforts were fruitful…. Literally.
…not much else to say, other than I’m having a good time. I’m back to waking up to roosters, with added horses naying and cows mooing.
Good information here. I enjoyed reading this and can’t wait for more. Keep up the good work.
Amazing!
Oh, Arianna, what an adventure! We love your writing, and you have SO much to write about. It sounds like very hard work. You’ll have the expertise to clear out the trail around Croft Lake next summer.
Love you lots.
Grandma & Grandpa
The Galapagos Islands are the most incredible living museum of evolutionary changes, with a huge variety of exotic species (birds, land and sea animals, plants) and landscapes not seen anywhere else.
Great to hear from you again. What incredible adventures you’re having. Thanks for sharing them. I’ve always wanted to visit the Galapagos. By the time you get home, you’ll be a super poop scooper and a wild weed whacker! Have fun, Honey. Faith C.
It was well worth the wait to read about your latest adventure. Thank you. We were beginning to be worried about our 2 beautiful American girls traveling to a new country and not hearing from you. So it was especially thrilling to get the latest journal account. Thanks again.
Love, Grandma Elnes