Typical Weekend in San Cristobal

Although no day is exactly the same as another, we are starting to find some sort of routine here in San Cristobal. For this post, I'm going to walk you through a typical weekend on the island, via pictures of course. This happens to be the events from this past weekend.

Friday: There's no better way to start the weekend out right than an Ecuadorian soccer game! This past week we played Chili on Monday I believe, and won 3-1. Then on Friday we played Venezuela and tied with a final score of 1-1. Futbol is very big here, and the town sort of shuts down during soccer games and every restaurant/store has the game turned on. This picture above is one of me and a couple of friends watching the game at my friend Anna's family bar.

Saturday: The next morning a group of us caught several cabs and headed across the island 40 minutes to a beach called Puerto Chino. The pic above is from the inside of the truck taxi looking out at us squished in the back. This beach however was, hands down, the most beautiful beach I have ever seen. One of my friend's described it as a "screen saver" beach, meaning the type of beach you only see on a Window's PC Screen Saver.

This is a pic of the whole group at Puerto Chino. This picture doesn't do it justice, but the sand was as white and soft as baby powder! The water was warm and clear as day. We brought lunch, a soccer ball, frisbee, and some surf boards and spent the day as beach bums. Definitely the coolest day I've ever spent on a beach.

We returned home from a long day at the beach and had dinner on our own. Friday and Saturday nights we don't eat with our families, so we usually either make our own dinners or find a cool restaurant to go to. This one was called San Jose Grill (in English) and was perhaps the best food on the island!

Not convinced? This was ONE person's plate. And on a separate plate, each person got a full plate of rice and beans. Literally never seen a fish this big on a plate. It was the best food ever, but left us all feeling like we just had Thanksgiving dinner! No lies.

Sunday: So after a weekend of fun, we try to get a little bit of work done on Sunday mornings. This past Sunday, I actually got a hair cut from a local barber for only $6! Probably my best purchase so far. He did a great job, and I feel refreshed. Nothing better than a fresh hair cut!

But, let's be honest, it's very difficult to get much work done when the beach is across the street and the sun is blazing down. So, of course, I got convinced to do some snorkeling at a nearby beach. We saw many turtles and even a couple sting rays.

And after snorkeling, you have to dry out via multiple hours on the beach. It's really the only way to get COMPLETELY dry, just saying. Anyway, that's a weekend in San Cristobal! Back to the school week, where I have one last week before fall break where we are "island hopping" around the Galapagos. That'll definitely be a great post!

Tsunamis, Sunsets, & Sea Lions

The class that I just finished up was called "Health, Culture, and the Environment," and when my professor Fernando realized that I was an advertising major (and the only one in the class who wasn't an environmental studies major) he had an idea for me. Everyone in the class was to come up with a research based final presentation to present to the class. I, on the other hand, was given the task of coming up with and carrying out a Tsunami Evacuation Plan for the local elementary school that is right down the street from our university.

Below is the plan that the school came up with of how the evacuation plan will work. The small green dotted line leads all of the students to one of two "safe zones," where the teachers will organize and count all of the kids. Once all of the kids are accounted for, they then follow the black lines out of the school, and to higher ground. The green dotted lines were to be painted in the shape of "blue footed booby" (an endemic species here in the Galapagos) foot prints, and the black lines would then be painted as green arrows on the ground.

To begin the project, I created stencils out of card board that I collected from local businesses on the island. Below are the booby print stencils as well as the arrow stencils.

Notice the UNC duct tape used to outline the holes in the stencil. The other student's got a kick out of this.

After the evacuation plan and the stencils were made, I had to convince my fellow classmates to take time out of their busy days (sun bathing on the beach) to help me carry out the project.

 

Although we still haven't finished painting the plan across the entire school, here is what one of the finished evacuation routes looks like. The elementary student's got a kick out of the fact that they were following blue-footed booby prints!

I wanted to dedicate the second part of this blog post to the beautiful sunsets that define the Galapagos Islands. Every day between 5:30 and 6pm we drop everything we are doing to enjoy the sunset on the beach. We're usually just at school, so it's a quick 30 second walk across the street to the beach to enjoy the sun falling.

Above is the view from my house one evening. The sun had just set, and left the sky with this hazy color. During some sunsets, when there are no clouds in the distance you can see a couple of the neighboring islands. On the left, you can see Santa Fe, and I believe the island on the right that is much lighter and harder to see is Santa Cruz.

Sunset from Playa Mann.

A group of my classmates enjoying the sunset on Playa Mann. I cannot get over how beautiful this is everyday. Some days the sunset is better than others, but it never fails to surprise me.

Incase you haven't seen enough of the awesome sunsets here on San Cristobal, below is a link to a video that one of my friends made of the sunset the other day. It's a pretty cool vid if you want to check it out!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymeWJX2I3W0&feature=youtube_gdata

And because I've failed to add many pictures of the craziness that are the sea lions, I guess I'll add a couple of me and these guys below!

 

Legally, you can't get closer than 2 meters (or approx. 6 feet), but sometimes these guys crawl right up to you to take a nap, so there's no way around it really.

I don't think I'll ever get over how funny these things are. Anyway, that is all for now. Thanks for reading!

I Like Boats

After two weeks on the island, I have a new hobby that I am starting to become obsessed with. Kayaking:

I've done it everyday, for the past three days. The first day I just rented some kayaks with some friends from the beach right across from school. It's only $5 an hour, so with 2 people, $2.50 is definitely worth it. However, just this weekend I found out that one of the locals that I have become friends with owns a hotel that has 6 kayaks that aren't being used. My friend Pablo offered to take us out kayaking whenever we wanted to, and I took him up on his offer.

This is Pablo and I carrying one of the kayaks from the hotel to the beach. Luckily, it's a very short walk. Yesterday, four of us kayaked out to a local snorkeling site with the nickname "Darwin's Cove," as this is the place that researcher's believe Darwin took his first steps in the Galapagos Islands. Then we dropped a weight and snorkeled for 45 minutes or so. The water was cold, but the amount of fish and sea turtles here was amazing. After we finished, we kayaked back across some rough water's, back to Pablo's hotel.

However, this wasn't the only boat I was on this weekend. On Friday some of the other international's on the island as well as most of the other GAIAS students in my program decided to have a yacht party. We heard from one of the other international's that for only $25 a person they open their boat to you from the hours of 5-10pm. They provided drinks and snacks and lot's of music and dancing. Although it was a bit cloudy, it was still nice riding around the port on a boat as the sun was setting around us. This was also an opportunity to meet and hang out with the other "gringos" who aren't necessarily studying here.

This is Garret, a volunteer from New York who is working in the highlands of the island. Also, Chloe, a volunteer from London who is teaching English at one of the schools located in town. The last is Eryn, one of the other student's in my program from the D.C. area.

Anyway, that is all for now. Just wanted to give a short update on what I've been up to this past week. Hope to have more stories for you shortly!