Ecuador-Day Nine

The fish market

Pablo had told us that our hotel was next to the "policia" station.  So in the dark morning of my ninth day of my trip, when I heard running footsteps and people chanting, "Uno, Dos, Tres, Quattro," I assumed I was listening to the police force doing their physical training and singing a running cadence.  The police in the Galapagos Islands are uniformed and always travel in white pick up trucks with extended cabs and ride four at a time.  This seems expensive to me because I am used to seeing only one or two police in a vehicle.  I went back to sleep because the police were running about 5 in the morning.  Breakfast consisted of fruit topped with granola and yogurt, eggs and toast. cheese slices, pineapple, grapes and melons. The food here is very good.  We walked to the Charles Darwin Research Center which has partnered with the National Park Service.  We discussed the problems with invasive cotton scale killing the mangrove trees.  This little bug forms a white, cotton like film on the trees.  The government tried to solve the problem by bringing in spotted lady bugs.  So far, this solution seems to have worked. The spotted lady bugs have taken care of the cotton scale and haven't started eating anything else  yet.  We had a good discussion on the role of the government in running the park service versus the needs of the businesses or the families who live there versus the role of conservation.  We got a good look at our first saddleback tortoises.  These tortoises have shells with an opening so the turtle can reach it's head up to eat.  Saddleback tortoises lived on those islands without plentiful food on the ground.  We saw "Lonesome George."  Lonesome George was the very last tortoise to be found on Pinta Island. No one knows how long George lived alone. We're not sure how old he is but they guess he's between 70 and 100 years old.  Pirates and buccanneers took all the other tortoises.  Because they can go a year without eating, the tortoises could eaily be store on the ship and eaten later.  George isn't lonesome anymore. He was removed from Pinta Island and brought here. He shares his enclosure with two other females.  He probably wouldn't get as much good publicity if they called him Lucky George. As of last month, he has two new female friends who have a closer DNA match to his own.  Researchers hope George will successfully mate with these females.  Otherwise George is the end of the line for the Pinta Island saddleback tortoises.  They could clone him but they'd only get another male.  It is possible to extract sperm from a tortoise.  The method of doing this is different than extracting sperm from mammals and involves electrical stimulation.  People don't want Lonesome George to have to go through that.  So if George wants any offspring, he'd better get to it the old fashioned way.  After our tour of the Charles Darwin center, I stopped at the gift shop to get a coke light.  There is no diet coke here, only coke light.  It's the same thing. The air was hot and muggy.  I slugged that coke light down and proceeded walking back to town.  Oh, my, God.  When that caffeine hit my system I FELT GREAT!  I felt like I could skip back to town.  I had energy.  I had good feelings.  Even though I had a burning rash on my neck and face, I felt great.  I was bursting with strength.  It's amazing how good a little caffeine can do you when you've been without for about a week.  I decided then and there to have a coke light every day.  On the way back to our hotel we stopped by the fish market (see photo).  A man and woman were cleaning tuna. They had about 5 huge tuna to clean.  The tuna looked to be about 20 pounds each.  They cut up the fish and wrapped the meat in plastic wrap.  A dozen brown pelicans surrounded the cleaning area, begging for scraps.  They got a few scraps but a lot of the fish heads and backbone were kept; maybe for stock.  Some of the pelicans actually stood on the cleaning table but away from the actual cleaning.  One of my fellow travelers thought this was unsanitary.  She wasn't feeling well.  Since I don't eat fish I wasn't worried about it but I shared my immodium with her.  At the back of the photo you can see some people at tables.  They were making signs.  They had big posterboard and were writing words on them.  We tried to read the signs but all we could make out was familia (family).  The people and the signs moved up the street.  Later we moved aside as two police trucks, each with four police, went up the street with lights flashing and siren blazing.  We wondered if the people with signs were protesting fishing rights and the police were going to break up the demonstration.  We'll never know for sure.  We stopped for lunch and to change clothes and we were back in the boat again.  I love being in the boat.  The boat cuts through the swells.  When the boat is on top of the swell, everything looks lower. When we're at the bottom of a swell, the waves tower above us. Sometimes the boat lurches on a wave so hard your stomach feels like you are on a rollercoaster.  Your body leaves the seat and you land either farther back on the seat or closer to the edge.  Petrels fly by the side of boat floating along just above the water.  Ocean waves don't make white caps as easily as lake waves. We are off for our fifth and final snorkel at Santa Fe Island. For the first time I get the wetsuit on all by myself.  Nobody has to zip me up this time.  I jumped in the water and swam close to the shore.  I heard sea lions barking.  I thought it was one of my fellow passengers who sometimes like to bark like a seal but this time it was a big daddy sea lion guarding his pups and warning us to back off.  Some people were too close.  Sea lions touched their masks. I saw a parrot fish and a sting ray.  I wanted to follow the ray but I had to stay with the group.  We saw schools of big angel fish. We came upon a huge school of white fish.  These white fish were about a foot long and had big black eyes.  I'll bet there were a thousand of them. Mixed in with the white fish were some blue and orange fish.  The fish turned as a group, first swimming one way and then turning in unison and swimming the other way-sort of like a flock of birds in the fall.  It was amazing to swim in a huge school of fish.  I tried swimming right down the middle of a group.  Half went to the right and half went to the left.  When I got through the two halves joined again.  We watched sea turtles flying through the water. And then it was time to get out of the water.  I didn't want to leave.  The wet suit and the salty water make me so buoyant I can hardly get below the surface.  I  have to snorkel again.  I think I'll plan my next trip around snorkeling.  We took the boat back to San Cristobel and checked into the Hotel Casa de Laura again.  We got the same room with lime green and lemon yellow walls.  We met at 7:20 for dinner.  This was a new restaurant to us and we ate on the second floor overlooking the bay.  The salad bar had 8 kinds of salad.  I had vegetarian spaghetti.  We talked about our highlights of the trip.  For some people it was the group camaraderie.  For others it was the swimming with turtles.  I liked the education I got.  Some people loved the hike to the volcano.  For those few that hiked right onto the lava fields they had a moment of silence to appreciate the stillness. There was no life on the lava fields. No plants, no animals, no birds, and no sound at all.  I wasn't there but I heard it was a very moving moment.  Some people liked the beaches the best.  Pablo was the last one to speak. He said one person on the trip was the best part for him; a person with determination and courage, fortitude and enthusiasm.  He went on and on about this person.  And then he said it was me!  He said the trip wasn't easy for me but I kept at it, kept trying, had a good attitude and enthusiasm.  He said I was an inspiration to him.  (Can you believe it?)  Then he mentioned my reaction when I saw the albatross.  He said when he makes a connection like that, when he sees us smile or start taking pictures with our camera, that is what makes his life worth living.  He thanked me.  "De nada!" I replied blinking back tears.  He likes it when people get impressed with nature. And he wants us to take this forward.  When we see something in nature or even in our yard, show the people we love how amazing it is so they can know it too.  I left that dinner feeling on top of the world. 

How much do I love snorkeling?

View from our hotel balcony