On Sunday morning we left our boat for the last time. On San Cristóbal Island we went to the Galapagos Islands Interpretation Center, which had a lot of information about the islands, their history, their animals, resources, and people. Then we went to the airport and flew back to Quito. The end of our Galapagos tour! Galapagos Highlights: The best days and islands of the Galapagos... Everything was amazing and I'm definitely glad I did the longer tour, because although we saw a lot of the animals more than one day, every island had something special that we didn't see anywhere [View Full Entry]

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Our last wildlife day. Sad! Española Island first in the morning. Masked boobies, sea lions, marine iguanas (red instead of just black), lava lizards (bigger), swallow-tail gulls (the ones that are everywhere here), Galapagos mockingbirds, Galapagos hawks (2 of them, and it's rare to even see one), and albatross. The albatross are pretty big and walk really awkwardly! We saw their big eggs too. On the boat ride to Garner Bay we saw orcas again! 4 of them, 2 babies. One of them completely jumped out of the water multiple times! And then they followed us over to the bay. Orcas [View Full Entry]

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Floreana in the morning. First we went to Punta Cormorant for a walk to see flamingos! For a couple days now our guide had been saying that there was a possibility of seeing flamingos and today we finally did! First just far away but then we went to another spot and saw them really close. We even saw a young one that was still completely white! Then we went snorkeling at Devil's Crown, a pretty cool rock formation sunk into the ocean. Lots of fish and even some reef sharks and a turtle. In the afternoon we went to Post Office [View Full Entry]

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Our only day without snorkeling... All day on Puerto Ayora with giant tortoises! In the morning we went up to the highlands to a "farm" to see the tortoises. They weren't in captivity, and they could go in and out of the national park, they're just more protected. We saw a couple within the farm and then also some in the national park in the actual wild. They are huge! Just like in the pictures. Massive! Some of the younger ones were smaller, but still big! They can live 150-200 years and they walk 15 km over a couple of months [View Full Entry]

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I'm finally going to finish my Galapagos blog after being home for 3 weeks... Here goes! This morning was our most intense hike. Which isn't really saying much. We walked up to a point about 115 meters high from which we could see the rest of the island (Bartolome) and some of the other islands. Beaches, gorgeous water, crazy rock formations... It is the most photographed view in the Galapagos. We then went snorkeling from the beach by Pinnacle Rock and saw our first penguins. We even went swimming with one that dove in right in front of us! There were [View Full Entry]

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North Seymour Island in the morning: the best bird day of the trip. Our first blue-footed boobies and frigates! We literally got off the dinghies and there were some there waiting for us on the shore! I love their blue feet! And they're pretty cool looking besides that. Plus they're the only bird in the Galapagos that dances. They have a mating dance that consists of raising their feet in high marching steps, flapping withs, whistling (males) and cawing (females). We never saw a complete dance, but we saw enough partial ones to get the idea. Some of them had eggs [View Full Entry]

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Alright, so I'm already back from the Galapagos and leaving for AK tomorrow, but I'm going to do this day by day... And by the way the Galapagos was freaking amazing! We saw so many animals and swam with most of them! We also saw a bunch that are unusual to see. Our guide kept telling us how rarely he sees them and how lucky we were. So it was a spectacular trip!!! The 9th I arrived back in Quito and met my group for the Galapagos! 2 sisters in their 20's, 2 guys in their 30's, a couple couples in [View Full Entry]

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My last night in Ecuador I had dinner (pizza) with Sophie and then Brittney, Sophie and I watched a movie before going home, saying goodbye and thank you to my family, and packing. Completely lost it when I was packing, but it had to happen at some point I guess... Saturday morning I went to the market one last time, then the sandwich shop, then home to get my stuff and to taxi Lagos where I was supposed to get a shuttle to the Quito airport at 11:30. It's supposed to take 2 hours to get to the airport. My flight [View Full Entry]

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This week Janice (my replacement) was helping teach. It's nice when there's overlap so that the old teacher can tell/show the new one how everything works around the school. It's hard to turn my kids over to anyone because I've been here so long and feel responsible for them, but I think Janice will do really well! She has a lot of energy and ideas! This week was syllables (ña, ñe, ñi, ño, ñu) and numbers again (0-50). Lots of color by numbers, go-fish, stories with numbers in them, fill in the blanks, reading and writing words and sentences, etc. Wednesday [View Full Entry]

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Elections this weekend! Finally! All the propoganda will finally end! In Ecuador during elections there is the Ley Seca, which basically means that no one is allowed to buy or sell alcohol from Friday to Monday. Voting is mandatory so they want to make sure that everyone makes a sober decision. Not many people go out anyway on Fridays in Otavalo, Saturday is the big night, but this Friday it was even more deserted than usual! Literally just us in the whole town I'm pretty sure! Nicole and Troy left Saturday and it was definitely the hardest goodbye! The two of [View Full Entry]

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