Days 77 - 79: Isla Isabela

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

Katie and I decided this morning that we didn’t want to eat just bread for breakfast, so we went on a little date to a different restaurant to buy ourselves good food. We pretty much drowned ourselves in breakfast happiness. I got a huge plate of hash browns (the real kind) with two fried eggs on top and two slices of delicious bacon. I don’t think I have had bacon since being down in Ecuador, and this food was just so reminiscent of breakfast foods at home, and I needed that comforting feeling right now.

Last night on the phone with my parents my Dad informed me that my high school counselor, to whom I was close, passed away. My senior year in high school (’05-’06) she was diagnosed with ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. Ever since then she has been going downhill, and she finally passed away. Although I have not been in super close contact with her lately, she helped me get through some extremely tough times in my life. When I had barely any friends because my supposed high school friends had turned their backs on me, she was there for me and she helped me cope and move on, making me realize that they were poisonous friends that never really made me happy, but liked to make other people miserable. Between people getting very catty and talking behind each others backs down here, and the news about Maggie’s death, I was feeling very stressed and my “date” with Katie was just what the doctor ordered.

After breakfast we went back to the room to finish packing, and then headed to the moya (the pier) to go through inspection with SICGAL and board our boats. Inspection took forever so of course we left late, but finally we were on our way to Isla Isabela. The boat ride was bumpy at first and had me worried, but then calmed down. The captain said we could go up front, so Sam, Shawna, and I went up there, but it soon got very choppy and we were hitting waves head-on. Once I became airborne about 8 inches from the boat I decided that it was not safe and I should go back. Going back, however, proved to be very difficult. The boat was covered in water and we were bouncing up and down a lot, and had the silver hand rails not been there I would have definitely ended up in the open ocean. The constant ups and downs was starting to make me sick so I laid down, but the back of the boat soon became similar to Niagra Falls and I was shortly drenched. It was cooler out, and with the wind and being wet I got cold pretty quickly and had a miserable last hour on the boat. When we pulled into port at Puerto Villamil, I could not have been happier.

We got checked into our hotel, Hotel San Vicente. I got a room with Shawna and Rachel. This hotel is much nicer than the last one on Santa Cruz, and it opens right out to the patio area where there are hammocks, lounge chairs around tables, and white sand as the floor. Although the hotel was supposed to provide us lunch, they didn’t have anything for us so we were sent out to find some on our own. I also discovered shortly after checking into the hotel that the top of my favorite new bathing suit was missing and I was sure it was on the boat. Unfortunately, they had already left for San Cristobal or Santa Cruz and were not answering their phones. We went to buy lunch, but all the restaurants were either closed or didn’t have food. How weird. I mean, who doesn’t at least have rice? We finally found a place that was way over-priced and only served bland food, and they didn’t have any meat, chicken, rice, batidos, or most other things on the menu. It also took about one hour to get a bowl of Ceviche which seemed a little ridiculous. Everyone was pretty cranky about the situation, so after lunch Rachel, Shawna, and I got Magnum ice cream bars to cheer us up. They are worth all 372 calories of yumminess that is packed into each one.

Since it was pretty late and there wasn’t much to do Shawna and I went to the beach to check things out and relax there for a bit. I didn’t stay for very long because it was actually kind of chilly, but Rachel joined Shawna and they stayed there for a while. I came back to the hotel to shower, and got a scalding hot shower. It was absolutely great. After, I was laying on my bed listening to Harry Potter 7 on my ipod and I ended up falling asleep before dinner. I woke up to Rachel standing over me only I was very confused as to where I was because of the dream I had been having. We went out to dinner which was at the hotel, and had fish and potatoes and soup. It was actually decent, but I doubt we will get anything other than fish while here.

Our guide, Jimmy, showed up to tell us the plan for tomorrow. It turned out we were actually climbing Sierra Negra tomorrow, not Friday, so there went any plans of going out. Jimmy wouldn’t actually be coming with us, but Rodolfo was another guide we met and he would be accompanying us tomorrow. Some of us decided it would be nice to go to the beach and chill there while having a drink. Rachel and I got a bottle of wine to split, and we shared about half of it before calling it a night and heading to bed to get some sleep before tomorrow’s long hike.

Thursday, November 6, 2008

Breakfast was served late this morning, and the buffet table for making our lunches was set up late as well. To sum it up, we got a very late start, which is not unusual in our group. We took vehicles on a 45 minute ride to the base area of Volcano Sierra Negra where we got out and started our hike. Luckily it was misty out and the sun was not showing at all so we weren’t sweating immediately. After about 1 hour and 20 minutes of walking up-hill (but not a steep up-hill) we reached part of the rim of the caldera. The crater was amazing; it was black lava (hardened) and went on and on. If I remember correctly, its dimensions are 5 km by 7 km; it is the second largest crater in the world. The largest is some volcano in Africa and is no longer active. Sierra Negra is still an active volcano with its last eruption occurring in 2005. It’s not an explosive eruption like the one at Mount St. Helens; it’s a slow free-flowing eruption that gives people plenty of time to get out of the way.

At the top of the crater rim we stopped and had a small snack, then continued our hike to Volcano Chico. This part of the walk was mostly on lava beds and on paths made of lava rocks. It was definitely a walk in which you would want close-toed shoes, but not everyone had them. I had my hiking shoes so I was fine, and I got to enjoy the walk and play in lava tubes that formed when Volcano Chico erupted about 100 years ago. I was a very barren landscape, reminiscent of the surface of the moon or another planet. The colors in some of the rock were amazing too, and we got to see periplasmic rocks that take on the color of oil in that they are very iridescent and extremely lightweight. When we got to the main crater at Volcano Chico we were able to see the coast of Isla Isabela as well as Isla Fernandina in the distance. This part of the volcano was covered in darker lava rock from Sierra Negra’s eruption in 1979, so the rock was much younger and there was no sign of plant life really. We did see some holes/craters that were emitting steam though, and that was pretty neat. After eating lunch on the rim, we started the long hike back. The first part across the lava rock was hot because the sun had come out now and there was no wind, so it was just sun beating down on black lava rock making it feel about twice as hot. Not only that, but it was uphill so we were all dying of heat and sweating by the time we made it out of Volcano Chico and back to the rim of Sierra Negra. I was near the beginning of the group and we decided to start the hike down to just get it over with. My feet were killing and I had blisters on almost every surface, so the next hour walk (which was luckily downhill) was a painful one in which Katie Kangas and I simply walked as fast as we could to get off the mountain without actually running.

At 2:40 pm we reached our starting point, and we both sat down on a bench to eat our delicious oranges. Then everyone loaded up the busses and enjoying sitting for 45 minutes after the 5 hours of standing and walking. Back at the hotel I went and took a nap immediately until about 6:30, at which time I took a warm shower to get the dirt off me. Then it was dinner with the group – Rachel and finished the bottle of wine we had opened yesterday. After dinner, Shawna, Rachel, and I went to the store and bought candy and junk food, brought it back to the hotel room, and watched Madagascar on my computer. Shawna fell asleep a little before the end while still sitting up on my bed, but Rachel and I made it to the end of the movie. It is such a cute movie, I’m glad I brought it on this trip to the other islands because it was able to put a big smile on my face and make me laugh. As soon as the movie ended we all went to sleep – others from our group went out to Beto’s Bar, but I just couldn’t go because my body was exhausted from today.

Friday, November 7, 2008

Breakfast was actually semi-on-time this morning which is a step up from when it usually is in Ecuador. After breakfast, we took vehicles over to the harbor where we loaded into 4 pangas (water taxis) and went to Tiniteras. It’s a short boat ride (5 minutes) off the coast of Isabela and we got to see probably more than 50 white-tipped reef sharks resting in a narrow channel. It was really neat to see them just sitting there. They, along with Nurse Sharks and a couple other species, have essential gill pumps that pump water through their gills so that they can remain stationary and still breathe Most other sharks have to swim continually so that water flows through their gills, but White-tipped Reef sharks are equipped to be able to sit on the bottom and not move. We also saw lots of marine iguanas and Sally Light footed crabs here.

Since the sun came out and we were standing on black lava rock, we decided to leave this area and go snorkeling. We went snorkeling in a nearby bay in extremely cold water. I saw a huge sting ray that was about 5 feet across, plus two other smaller sting rays. I also saw a shark and lots of colorful reef fish. Here there was actually white coral everywhere, which was something that is not seen on all islands. There were also lobsters and penguins in the bay that we got to see – the lobster I saw was HUGE!

I got out before most people because, surprise surprise, I was cold. I warmed up in the sun while waiting for the rest of the group to finish their adventures. Once everyone was back on board the four pangas, we headed back to the docks where we disembarked and walked back to the hotel for lunch. There was about 40 minutes before lunch was served so I called my mom and had her call me back. We talked for probably 20 minutes, and I told her about all the stuff we have been doing and how I am going to have class at the Charles Darwin Research Station next week on Santa Cruz. Then she told me how my cat Isabella just came in and puked on the carpet (that’s my kitty!), and I told her how I am planning out food she must make for me when I get home. Surprisingly I am not losing weight down here but gaining weight I think. It’s not thrilling me, and I think it’s because I don’t drink alcohol, coke, sprite, fanta, or Gatorade at home whereas I do here because that is what is served to us 90% of the time. Water is not safe to drink out of the tap so you have to buy bottled water and it’s a pain to buy sometimes. I also don’t eat desserts after every meal like I do here, nor do I solely rely on carbohydrates as my main source of food like everyone does here (bread for breakfast, rice and pasta and potatoes for lunch and dinner). Anyway, my one sense of home has come to be ice cream and chocolate as a coping mechanism for being slightly homesick and also annoyed with the way people are treating each other. There is way too much talking behind each others backs going on and it is beyond frustrating because now I have been dragged into the middle of a feud between two of my friends and no one is being level headed; everyone is being selfish and unreasonable and jumping to conclusions when really everything started because of miscommunication and misunderstandings. It’s obvious how hard it is to live in such a tight-knit group for long periods of time…

After lunch I walked around with Sam and Rachel and we went to look for Sam’s room key which she lost on the beach the night before. As we were expecting, no luck, but we looked for a while anyway. Then we had to come back to the hotel before our next excursion. Our first stop was the Giant Tortoise Breeding Center. It was pretty cool because we got to see different subspecies that are only found on Isabela, and we also got to see a tortoise egg as well as a baby tortoise that was only 8 days old! It was so adorable and made the entire trip completely worth it. Then we left the breeding center and went to Mura de Lastimas (?) which roughly translates as the Wall of Tears. It was built in the 1950s by prisoners who were brought over from the mainland because there was no room left in the prisons there. Roughly 300 prisoners built this wall that is about 100 meters long, 10 meters tall, and 7 meters wide in only one year. They were made to walk around town and up towards to the highlands to get the rocks, which they then had to carry back to this area with no clothes or shoes in the middle of the day. It was essentially torture, and though the prisoners were all rapists and murderers, it was still cruel and unusual. Eventually there was a mutiny during which the prisoners got all the police officers drunk and escaped on boats. When they made it to the mainland, however, the cops were there waiting for them again. A few did get away, and the last prisoner, who happened to live on Isla Isabela, passed away just 5 years ago.

No one stayed too long at the wall because there were ants everywhere. They crawled up our legs and luckily didn’t bite, but were very annoying so we were all dancing around to keep them off of us. We hopped in the busses and took a short ride to another stop: a lookout. 158 stairs to the top where we were rewarded with a nice view. The sun was starting to go down as well, so that was really neat. Then we headed back down to do one more stop before heading back to the hotel. It was a short walk through mangroves, and I ended up not going because I was told there would be a lot of bugs. I ended up falling asleep in the van with Rachel and Sam, and people were gone for a pretty long time. Turns out they found some fishermen and were helping them get fish out of their nets. Weird. Anyway, then it was finally time to go back to the hotel. Rachel and I both showered before dinner, which was fish and rice again.

Since Sam and Katie didn’t really eat dinner, Rachel and I went with them to get hamburgers and French fries, only they were out of meat so they ended up ordering a pizza instead. It took forever to come, but we laughed a lot and made jokes so it was worth the wait. I ended up succumbing to ice cream for the second time today (guilty, I know) but have decided that as soon as vacation ends tomorrow, so does my junk food binging. People were planning on going out tonight, so we came back to the hotel so I could take my medicines and get ready. We eventually made it to Beto’s Bar, but by this time I was not really feeling like partying so I just sat and talked with people for about an hour. Since the bar is right on the beach and we were sitting in the open air, it was very chilly, and Shawna and I were some of the first to succumb to our warm hotel room and beds waiting for us. We chatted it up for a bit back in the hotel room, then fell fast asleep.