Days 75 & 76: A new era

Monday, November 3, 2008

One day until the U.S. presidential election. Although I am confident Barack Obama will win, I am still anxious to see what happens. My absentee ballot unfortunately never reached me in time, so I missed out on voting in my first presidential election…sad face

This morning we got up at 4:40 to board the bus that would take us to the other side of the island at 5 am. We were all droopy eyed and not pleased to be on the bus so early, especially because we now had 6 extra tourists, and extra guide, our 14 students, our guide, and all the crew to fit on the boat. Courtney really dropped the bomb on this vacation – don’t get me wrong, it has been amazing, but we definitely got jipped because we were told one thing and delivered another (of much less quality). On the boat most people took a nap. I took a 1.5 hour nap on the floor of the upper deck, but it was still quite cold even when wrapped in all my clothes and beach towel. When I woke up, I was looking around and saw a shark that was probably 8 – 10 feet long swimming by! It was super cool and I told the others so they could see it too. Then a little while later, we saw jumping/flying manta rays. I had never seen a manta ray in the wild before so this was super exciting. As we got closer to Daphne Major, a huge pod of dolphins swam by. There were probably almost 50 dolphins in this pod, and they were all swimming in a pack and jumping – we even had a few come swim by the boat out of curiosity.

We motored around part of Daphne Major, which was very exciting because most of us just finished reading Beak of the Finch for our Evolutionary Biology class, and we learned about Peter and Rosemary Grant and their Finch study they have been conducting on this island since 1973. It was surreal to actually be at the place that all this revolutionary research took place. As Sam described it, it was better than meeting a celebrity or other famous person. You know you are a science nerd when meeting Charles Darwin or the Grants is your dream…

After that we motored over to Bartolome. There we had a dry landing and we got out to do a little hike. The landscape there is very very different than any landscape we have seen thus far – they actually call it a moonscape because it is more resemblant of the surface of the moon. The hike was hot, but we got to see Pinnacle rock and Santiago from the top, not to mention Santa Fe, Santa Cruz, Daphne, Chinese Hat rock, Isabela, and more. The hike down was easier than the hike up of course, but my knees have been giving me trouble ever since Chimborazo so it was slightly painful coming down all those stairs. We took the dingy back to the boat where we quickly grabbed our snorkeling gear, then got taken to a beach right next to Pinnacle Rock. We walked to the other bay to see the shark feeding area. There were tons of small White tipped reef sharks feeding in the shallows. Then we just walked back to the other side by Pinnacle Rock to go snorkeling.

Luckily it was a hot day and the water wasn’t too cold. We saw penguins (yay!) and lots of sea stars and fish. The water was a bit turbid, but it was still ok. Then we just lay on the beach until it was time to go back to our boat. Back on board the Santa Fe II, we had lunch. Lunch was alright: fish and rice again. After lunch it was time for our 3 hour return trip to Santa Cruz. The boat ride was very rocky and windy and I actually thought I might get knocked off the boat at one point we were rolling from side to side so much! I started to get sea sick, but luckily it went away as I continued to lay flat on the boat with my eyes shut. Our boat does not go fast at all, so 2.5 hours later when the other boat was passing us we were all pretty ticked off. Several of the girls, including myself, decided to moon the other boat as they passed, but Tom and Forrest had the same idea, so it was pretty much a gigantic mooning fest. When we finally arrived back in port we boarded the bus to take us back to Puerto Ayora. I fell asleep and got a much needed nap.

I got a quick shower, then headed to dinner because we got back pretty late. Dinner consisted of pizza tonight (yum) at the same restaurant again. We stuffed ourselves silly then got an awesome ice cream dessert cake. Some people wanted to go out, and I was going to go and hang out for a while but I passed out on my bed at 8:30 pm. When I woke up at 11pm with the lights still on and the door open and Danielle also passed out I was very confused as to where I was. Once I oriented myself I got ready for bed and passed out until morning

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Election Day. Today marks a new beginning, whether it be for the better or worse. We had breakfast at 7:30 today and were supposed to leave at 8am, but the breakfast place was not ready and we didn’t even get food until almost 8. They completely jipped us again and pissed everyone off because the juice and coffee which was always included was not included today. Then, the bus was late by about 45 minutes so we just sat around waiting for it to come, putting sunscreen on in the middle of the street and looking like gigantic tourists. Once the bus came we all piled on and headed to Los Gemelos (the twins). They are two collapsed volcanoes on Santa Cruz and I guess there are very few of this type of geological formation in the world. Anyway, they were pretty awesome. The one was over 100 feet deep, just like a straight crater that had formed hundreds of thousands of years ago.

The bus ride to the canal by Baltra was short after that stop, and we were split up into our groups and boarded the small boats again. That meant I was on the Pacific. We sped out towards Daphne Major, which is only about a 30 minute ride away on the speed boat, and on the way saw 4 manta rays. They are absolutely HUGE and amazing! They were also mating, so we basically got to see a manta ray orgy. We watched them for almost 10 minutes before they finally took off, flying through the water at amazing speeds. Then we slowly rode around Daphne Major, looking at where evolution and natural selection were studied intensively by the Grants. For us science nerds, this is a pretty sweet place to be. After that, we went to a little rock between Daphne Major and Minor to snorkel.

The water was a bit turbid and the current was pretty strong with some big waves, making it hard to maneuver. We did get to see white tipped reef sharks though, which made me happy because I wanted to say I swam with sharks in the wild. They were only a few feet long so they were still young and did not bother us at all. I was trying to follow my group around the rocks, however, and got caught up in the current so I got left a bit farther behind. When I turned my head, there was a 5 – 6 foot shark swimming by and I almost crapped myself right there. I kicked my fins out hard to swim away as fast as I could and catch up with my group. I was a little panicky so I made a bee-line for the boat and got out of the water as fast as I could. We went back to Daphne Major for more snorkeling, but I decided to sit this one out and take pictures from the boat while warming up in the sun. I guess they saw one more shark, but other than that not much else that we hadn’t already seen. As I lay on the front of the boat with Sam, Shawna, and Rachel, we sped off towards a beach for lunch. The beach was really soft sand, and we got free time to swim, relax, or do whatever we wanted. Lunch was also served then, and it was just fried rice (they are really big on that down here for some reason). I ended up falling asleep on the beach, getting a nice little nap in the sun. Around 2 pm we headed back to port to get back on the bus. We were on the funniest little bus with a fold out row, and we nearly filled every single seat. The ride back was uneventful, most people fell asleep or just listened to music.

Back in Puerto Ayora, Rachel, Jon, and I decided to go for a run since it was still early. We ran to Tortuga Bay, which is about a 3 km run. Tortuga Bay is the most amazing white sand beach I have ever seen – it even puts Puerto Chino to shame! It is a huge beach, probably almost a mile wide, with great waves that people can even surf on. We walked part of the beach then headed back to the hotel. We walked barefoot which was kind of a good idea, but kind of not because my feet definitely hurt a lot after. Then we showered and went to walk around before dinner. There is one jewelry store that is absolutely amazing, and actually really well priced that we went to. I had just heard the news that my old counselor, Mrs. Miller, had passed away. I was pretty sad about it, mostly because I wish I could be there for her funeral but I can’t since I am down here. I know she would have wanted me to keep having a great time though and not dwell on sadness, so in her honor I am going to do just that and make sure I have the time of my life, making great memories.

Dinner, which was at El Chocolate again, was actually pretty awful. I am not exactly sure what it was, but it appeared to be a gigantic plate of rice with some chicken in it and some sauce, and tasted like a mix between Ramen noodles and curry sauce. Either way, I was not thrilled by it. Dessert made up for the fact that dinner was disappointing though: warm chocolate cake with strawberry ice cream on top. Then, since Rachel and were feeling like we hadn’t really eaten anything, we went to get a piece of cheesecake as well. I got strawberry and it was the most delicious dessert I have had in a long time. I can’t tell you how thrilled I was. On our way back to the hotel, we passed Café Hernan and saw many people from our group there. Turns out this was the only bar on the island that we could find that was covering the U.S. presidential election. I had to go to the internet café to check on some stuff anyway, so I did that and then took some things back to my hotel room before returning to the café. We got a drink and watched as the results came in, with things looking up for the democrats the more that time went on. Everyone cheered when California’s results came in because they put Obama over the necessary number of Electoral Votes to win. I was so happy I called Shivani and Chelsea to say hi and be excited with them and I just felt like I need to talk to my friends. They were really excited to hear from me and I was really happy to hear their voices. We talked for a little bit before I left to go hang out with friends. We had decided to go to the bar Limon y Café for drinks to celebrate and toast to a new president.

At the bar, Kelly told us that Victor and Vanessa were at Bongo’s bar, so Rachel and I ran over and grabbed them. Then it was just good times, dancing, singing, and toasting to Obama for a while. I wasn’t drinking, but I still went to have a good time with the others. Around 11:15 pm most of us decided to go back to the hotel to sleep. As we passed the first bar, we saw Obama giving his acceptance speech but couldn’t really hear or understand it because they dubbed over it in Spanish. Back in the hotel I quickly passed out with a smile on my face: a new era was beginning for the U.S., and hopefully this one would be better than the past 8 years.