Galápagos Islands - Day 6 (Adrianne)

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Bonjour mes amis! I hope you’ll excuse my awkward French, I am rather out of practice.

Bringing you Thursday’s blog is none other than the girl whose awesomeness is surpassed only by her nerdiness (a fact that will become only too clear later on in this post). If you guessed Adrianne, you get a virtual GOLD STAR!!! You know it’s important because it’s all capitalized and stuff.

By the way, I noticed that my family is shamefully ignorant of most nautical terms. I intend to rectify this. Starboard is the right side of the boat, Port is the left, Stern is the back, and Bow is the front of the boat. Of course, I could be wrong, but I doubt it.

Today is not actually Thursday, so I sincerely apologize for any details that may or may not be factual (hint: if I start talking about flying pink elephants, you know I’m probably making it up. But you never really know).

LET THE RECAP BEGIN (insert fanfare)

So on Thursday, we returned to civilization for the day. By civilization, I mean we spent the day on Santa Cruz, a large island that is home to 18,000 people.

Our day began with Paula, our expedition leader, waking us up at the ungodly hour of 6:00. In the morning! And, as per usual, she was chirpy and I just wanted to poke her with a spoon repeatedly. After a fair amount of procrastinating and nagging from the ever loving Parental Units, we were all up, dressed, and enjoying (to the best of our ability) our usual breakfasts. For Joshua and me, that means Fruit Loops (side note: I didn’t think it was possible to tire of sugary breakfast cereals, but somehow it has happened).

By 7:30 (IN THE MORNING. WHO IN THEIR RIGHT MIND IS EVER UP THAT EARLY?), we were in line to disembark and begin the day’s adventures. We made it to the dock without incident and when we landed, I had to remind myself that I am a yucky teenager and therefore I should be apathetic towards the marine iguanas that just sat on the dock, chillin’ like villains. I mean, I’d seen many before that on other islands and therefore should not be surprised or delighted to see them hanging out near people.

After mostly supressing my squealing, we began the easy walk to the Charles Darwin Research Station, where we looked at various types of tortoise and land iguana. There were many baby tortoises that made even this jaded teen mushy over how unbelievably adorable they are. One of them had flipped on to its back and its little legs were trying to walk on air without much success. It was one of the highlights of the day.

While we were admiring the poor baby tortoise, I noticed a suspiciously familiar hippy with long hair admiring the same squirming tortoise. It was Jesus (the hippy was, not the baby reptile)! That’s right, people the same Jesus from our hotel in Guayaquil (see my previous blog post). Jesus either enjoys the same activities the Harte-Sjodin clan does or else we have a stalker. Either way, I think we have a decent shot of making it to heaven. Woot woot. Unfortunately, my father refrained from photographically stalking Jesus, despite my reasoned and holy (geddit?) logical argument that he started it because he stalked us first.

One of the most interesting things at the station, that wasn’t Jesus, is the (apparently) world famous Lonesome George. This tortoise is very old and the very last of his species (I will share my theories on this in a moment). There have been numerous attempts to get him to mate with some super-fine lady tortoises but he is, as the good monks of old were, uninterested. One strategy the researchers have tried was having a Swiss masseuse massage him in an attempt to get him to loosen up and get on with the life cycle. How one relieves tension in a tortoise was a question I was afraid of asking. There have also been attempts to (how to put this politely…) ‘manually stimulate’ the old boy, which also have failed. Of course, they could surgically extract what they need but he’s quite old and they don’t want to accidentally do something silly, like kill the last vestige of that particular tortoise gene pool.

Lonesome George is very old and the very last of his kind. In my opinion, Lonesome George is a Timelord. If you didn’t have to Google that term, have another gold star. I mean, think about it: He’s 100+ years old, THE VERY LAST, and he isn’t digging the lady tortoises. Timelords live for yonks. I mean, the Doctor is nine hundred and seven. Plus ‘the very last’ is a phrase that is constantly repeated on Doctor Who (which is what I am currently talking about, in case you are still understandably confused and were too lazy to Google what Timelords are). And, as far as I can tell, Timelords aren’t all that interested in doing the nasty with those who aren’t at least Timelord-shaped. So, BAM! Mystery solved! You can all sleep easy tonight.

Okay, I am now reeling in my nerd.

After the Charles Darwin Research Station and the Timelord Tortoise (sorry; last time, I promise), we boarded buses that took us to a sugar factory. We saw sugar cane getting juiced, which was interesting. There a machine that runs on the awesome power created by a donkey walking in circles. The donkey circle turns two cogs with sugar cane in between, crushing the sugar juices out of the cane (stalk? Twig? Branch?) and into a bucket. From the bucket it gets boiled until most of the water evaporates then the honey-like liquid is put into little rectangular moulds to dry and become raw sugar. This raw sugar can be cubed then eaten with a coffee bean as a pretty tasty energy snack. Which reminds me; they also made coffee, which was delicious, but the process wasn’t nearly as interesting as the sugar one. Basically, they pick the coffee fruit, dry them, separate the bean from the rest of the fruit by using a fan that blew away everything that isn’t bean, and then toast the beans. Another thing they make is sugar cane liquor. They ferment the sugar cane juice until it turns into alcohol. After that, they distil it until it’s 80 percent hard liquor. After that, they dilute it and/or add flavouring and the like. Samples of the somewhat diluted liquor were available but I decided against trying it after many people remarked on the ‘burny’ taste.

While there was a queue for liquor (Americans, don’t cha know), I managed to make friends with a lovely girl named Shree (spelt phonetically) and her brother (who is the one who described alcohol as “burny”, and is twenty, just FYI) from Fort Worth, Texas. Shree is seventeen and just got early acceptance to Harvard for microcellular biology. I think it’s microcellular anyway, both micro and cellular are somewhere in the program’s name. She won this trip by winning a Google-sponsored national science fair. It may have been an international fair but I was too busy being impressed to remember specifics. Anyway, she was pretty cool and I hung out with them and the other adolescents on this trip for the rest of the day, giving me a much needed chance to miss my family, Josh in particular.

After the liquor et cetera, my friends and I decided to walk to the restaurant instead of taking the bus like the rest of the squares. As it turns out, it was a very short walk as well as being the most fun I’ve had on a walk so far on this trip.

When we arrived at the restaurant, we were immediately plied with copious amounts of delicious bread that the owner of the establishment was only too happy to keep giving to us. Between the seven of us at the table, we went through at least nine (relatively small) plates of it (don’t tell my parents, I keep getting the ‘eat healthy’ lecture). However two of my friends named Adam and Taylor (both boys a year younger than me) ate about three each. So really, between the other four of us, we ate three plates.

We were suitably embarrassed by the empty plates littering the table and came up with an alternative reality, y’know, one where we’re not ginormous pigs. We decided that we blinked and all the food disappeared, which meant that there was only one possible explanation: a new species, namely: the Galapagos Cat. Of course, as everyone knows, the Galapagos Cat is endemic to the islands and eats only bread. What it did to survive before the arrival of mankind to the islands is a mystery. The Galapagos Cat has very soft skin on its underbelly, and the fur covering said skin has the appearance of scales. This unique feature means that the Galapagos cat is vulnerable to attack from birds as well as sea lions. One tap to its stomach is game over for the cat. This means that the cat must do everything very quickly to avoid detection. When I say very quickly, I mean blink speed. This species prefers to leave near the coast, however it is known to live in the highlands, where many a delicious plate of bread has gone missing over the years.

The actual meal was quite delicious, but not as good at the bread that preceded it. After we ate, Shree and I hung out on hammocks and quietly poked a bit of fun at a boy named Jack, who may or may not have been mentioned in other blogs as Ma’am. He earned this nickname by replying ‘yes Ma’am’ to a question posed by my mother. I found it hilarious, but mum was less amused. However, now that I’ve actually spoken to him, I prefer the more accurate ‘Slightly-annoying-when-he-speaks, shirt-hating-slightly-alcohol-dependent-smart-aleck-who-is-actually-pretty-when-he-keeps-his-mouth-shut-even-if-he’s-a-bit-short”. I say this with some affection as he isn’t a total idiot. He just says ‘I know’ a lot. Which wouldn’t be a problem but he says like “eye neeeew”. He also says ‘go’ like ‘goo’. All in all, there could be worse shipmates.

Getting back to the day; after the hammocks and digesting, we (meaning my new friends and I) boarded a different bus from the PUs and went to a trail in the highlands of Santa Cruz to go tortoise hunting. We saw two GIANT giant tortoises that were, according to our guide, almost two hundred years old. The trek was quite enjoyable since the air was much cooler in the highlands and there were so many things to look at. Of course, no matter how cool it was, I still ended the trip all sweaty and gross because it was such a long hike.

A few of the teens who were in university started talking about beer and how they have to buy cheap stuff sometimes that tastes like horse pee. While I listened to them talk (as I obviously had nothing to contribute to that particular thread of conversation), two things occurred to me. One being; why and how these kids know what horse urine tastes like, or any urine for that matter. The second was that it’s kind of really sad that they are so dependent on alcohol to have a good time that they feel compelled to drink stuff that sounds really, really nasty.

After the hike, we went back to town via the buses and I met up with my parents to do a bit of souvenir shopping while we were still surrounded by civilization. While we were walking around, my mother and I noticed that we were more seasick on land than we are on the boat. The ground beneath our feet felt like it was pitching and swaying beneath us. It was an effort to remain upright. We made our purchases and headed back to the boat. While on the dock, I noticed two sea lions sunbathing on the edge of it. It still amazes me that the wildlife here is so comfortable with the abundance of humanity surrounding them.

Again, we made the trip from point a to b without incident. After setting foot on the boat once again, I felt much more at ease and was able to move around once more. Unfortunately for my mother, her seasickness wasn’t restricted to land. For some reason, she doesn’t find the rocking of the boat to be as comforting as I do.

At the end of the day, I had a wonderful time, with the exception (and again I break my yucky teenager rule) of the fact that the sudden abundance of somewhat idiotic kids around me has made me grateful that Avery isn’t crazy, which in turn reminds me that she isn’t here and that makes this trip feel very incomplete.

So that was our Thursday. Care to top it?

My mother has just informed me that she accepts my challenge. I somewhat doubt she will succeed as she had mostly the same Thursday as I did and hers definitely did not include the important scientific discovery of a new species.

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Photos

Darwin Research Station
A rare photo taken by the swede.

Upside Down
A baby tortoise. He has fallen (over) and he can't get up.

Land Tortoise
Seen at the Darwin Research Station. Jesus was nearby.

Winky
Not sure if he was winking or if he had an anormal growth on his eye.

Cactus Flower
A cactus in full bloom with the rainy season

Donkey
An as(s)inine way of extracting liquid sugar from the sugar cane.

Lunch Poolside
A restaurant in the cooler highlands.

Land Tortoise
A land tortoise spotted on a farmers land at the end of the day.