Galapagos... A whole another world!

Tuesday started off a terrific day!  It was my last day of biology and all we had to do was present our final papers.  Mine was based on organic chocolate and coffee and shade grown rather than sun grown.  So our teacher brought in chocolate and coffee.  This shade grown organic coffee was so good I didn't even have to add cream or sugar!  After biology class I went for a walk with Andres and we went to sit and talk in the park before I left.  He got me a really neat red feather earing!  Me and my feathers, he knows me to well!  I was surprised!  After I had Ecuador Experience, we watched a movie on Bolivia and discussed our reading and various political things.  After Ecuador Experience we had a birthday celebration for me and CEDEI had bought strawberry and vanilla ice cream!  Soy and Nut Free!  After enjoying our ice cream we were on our way to Guayaquil!  When we got to Guayaquil we dropped off our things at the hotel and we were off for our city tour!  First off I love Guayaquil and would totally move there permantely if it weren't for my family including my cat!  First off in the improved section of Guayaquil, they don't have wires hanging in the air anymore and they moved them underground, which I thought was very cool!  Then we walked over to the Cathedral and toured how it was set up!  They installed tv's at each pew because the alter was all the way in the back from when the sermons used to be in lating and the priest wouldn't face the crowd.  Also people are buried under the alter, which is pretty cool!  Then we continued on with our tour and I don't want to bore you or give away to much information because everyone needs to go to Ecuador in their life!  After we toured various building and talked a lot about the archecture and made our way to the pier!  It reminded me a lot of the Navy Pier!  We even got to see a pirate ship like one that used to come to Guayaquil!  So cool!  I learned a lot about the different important people of Ecuador and what made them so influencial!  After we were set free to go have dinner on our own.  Myself and four other girls stayed at the hotel and ordered at one of their restaurants.  We all wanted a hanburger so we all ordered a different kind.  After dinner we met up the other girls who got Chinese and went for ice cream.  Then we all hung out in our room and talked and chilled!  We had a buffet for breakfast the next morning which is scary to think about!  Now that I'm twenty I should probably start watching what I'm putting into my body more closely.  Ahh anyways we all pigged out that morning becasue we knew we wouldn't be eating again until around 3pm.  After breakfast I met up with on of my professors who brought some things from my mom!  Inside were two cards, one was a birthday card from my mom which made me cry and the other was from my brothers with a cat on the card and they both personally wrote me a letter and it really made me cry!  I really miss my brothers!  Everyday something else happens that I wish I could be experiencing with them or could laugh at with them, actually I'm tearing up a little just writing about it!  We departed for the airport and had to go through special screenings multiple times because you can't bring certain items to the Galapagos in order to preserve the natural areas!  It was a two hour plane ride and we had finally arrived in the airport.  first of all the airport is not like American airports we had to walk down these stairs and the airport was pretty much all outside and the first thing I noticed was the heat!  I loved it!  We got through the airport and rode a bus to the dock where we had about a two minute boat ride to transfer to a different island.  Then we had about a two hour bus ride.  Halfway through we stopped at place to see turtles int their natural habitat!  It was pretty cool to experience how tame they were.  And for those of you (mom) who think turtles are slow, wrong if you go near them while they are trying to eat you better run the other way fast!  The turtles were more concerned about their food then us!  After seeing the turtles we got to our hotel for a quick drop off our things and go to lunch.  We had fresh tuna for lunch with a chocolate covered banana.  After lunch we got to watch some sea lions and pelicans.  Then we had about a fifteen minute walk to go see some mangroves and Lonesome George.  for those of you who don't know anything about Lonesome George he is really old and they discovered him the 70's and he is the only one left of his species.  They have been trying to get him to mate and reproduce so we can keep his species alive.  They even have women come and try to rub George to make him cum so they can try to reproduce him!  Personally I find that disturbing and wouldn't want that job!  After seeing Lonesome George we saw another turtle who has five wives!  Crazy they call him super something, I can't remember because we had Dr. Robertson with us and his first name is Dick and our guide from then on called him super Dick, sure and I have to remember that while he is teaching education.  No it was a good time and our guide thought it was hilarious!  After Lonesome George, we headed back and a few of us stopped and looked in store and this is where I got my brothers covered!  You just can't pass up an I love boobies shirt and matching shot glass! Hope they like them!  After we sat by our hotel pool and chatted until dinner.  For dinner I had spaghetti because I didn't want shrimp on my birthday!  Luckily it was a good spaghetti!  After dinner we went for more ice cream because the heat just called for ice cream!  After we all sat by the pool and girls came to our room again to chat and do our lately gossip on life.  Of course I was sleeping when everyone was still in the room.  What can I say, I'm getting old.  We woke up Thursday morning, had breakfast at our hotel of eggs and hot chocolate.  Weird!  Then we were on our way to the next island.  We took a taxi, which in Galapagos the main and only cars are white trucks because they pollute less or something so that was a change.  Then we took a little boat to the big boat which was already filled with french people.  I was seated towards the front of the boat, the hottest location and not able to see anything, just feel it all.  It was a long two hours of feeling sea sick!  I felt like one of those girls from the movies who was just green in the face and sweating mucho!  Well I made it without puking!  Then we got to the island where we toured the area of the Witdmers.  The views were absolutely breathtaking, it's nice to just sit there for awhile and take in the view and think about life.  After we had lunch but I was still feeling a little sick so I just ate my rice and passed on more tuna, of course I ate two chocolate covered bananas!  After we took a walk down to the dock to admire some sea lions and take in the beautiful ocean.  Our boat arrived and I was definetely sitting in the back this time!  We got our snorkle gear and we were instructed to jump off our boat into the huge ocean to snorkle with giant sea turtles, sea lions, penguins, sting ray, and various fish!  It was the coolest experience of my life and the best workout!  I couldn't believe we were in the water for an hour and a half!  We got back in our boat and headed to the island of our residence for the rest of our trip Isabella, the biggest island in Galapagos!  We docked and on the dock waiting to welcome us were sea lions.  Then we got in a taxi to our hotel!  The first thing we did was head to the beach!  We couldn't go snorkeling again because of high tide.  So we went to the beach and watched sea lions, the sunset, and played in the ocean.  We came back for dinner but I was still not feeling well so I just had soup, which was really good!  Then we had strawberry jello!  After dinner we went up to our room and attempted to watch finding nemo, but kim gave me the best back massage ever and I was passed out in minutes!  We woke up Friday morning, had breakfast, lots of pinneapple and we were off to the volcanos.  We hiked about 9miles total visiting the different volcano craters and lava tunnels, they were really neat!  The hike was hot and very marvelous! We got to the side of Volcan Chico and we saw the whole island and surrounding islands and the ocean!  We sat up there for about 15minutes and I had a lot to think about since I was too tired and hot to pay attention at that point to whatever the guide was talking about.  I think everyone in our group was zoned out. We headed back to a tree to eat lunch and rehydrate.  And we continued our hike back down the volcanos.  We got back to our bus and headed back to the hotel, some of us went to see some flamingos in their natural habitat.  After the flamingos, we headed to the beach to watch pelicans and iguanas hanging out on the beach.  We even found a sea lions and for some reason everytime I would sing do a little dance, make a little love, get down tonight, the seal lion would go crazy...then again it is mating season for them.  On the beach there were these guys surfing right in front of us, so of course me pulling (Melody) I told the girls we were going to get free surfing lessons.  So as one came in I used my best spanish and said muy bien...diez, and clapped!  Must have been, I got their attention and a smile and they even talked to me, but the other girls were just to shy and we had to go to dinner. Well they told us to go to the discotecca that night so we did.  We ate dinner and we got ready and headed out with a guide from our hotel.  We got there and we were the only girls there, well needless to say we were going to have dance partners that night.  It was really hot inside the open club but I would have rather spent it dancing with Andres outside on the pier.   Oh well!  So salsa music came on and I was outside with some of the other girls and the owner came out and asked me to dance, I really didn't want to but I guess I had calories to sweat off.  So we danced and that was interesting.  After we all jumped in the ocean, thankfully no one skinny dipped in the galapagos that night.  We got back to our rooms and passed out.  Saturday morning we went snorkeling in two different locations for a total of about 3 and half hours!  It was incredible!  I snorkeled with sharks, colorful fish, starfish, huge stingray like the teacher from finding nemo, giant turtles.  I was literally in finding nemo!  It was so cool! We also saw an iguana stomping ground and then we had lunch!  After lunch we went to the wall of tears and saw many more turtles and iguanas. We went to the beach to watch the sunset and then head back for a famous barbeque of the hotels!  We got first in line for a good night!  We had salad, some vegetable potatoe salad, barbequed tuna which tasted like steak, chicken, baked potatoes, rice, vegetable, banana, and shrimp kabobs, soup, and some kind of pudding...it was a meal to remember!  We all pretty much headed upstairs to bed because we had a 5am wake up call.  We had to ride for two hours on this boat!  It was miserable, luckily I was sitting next to sister joan, who was praying for me not to get sick.  I have never sweated so much in my life though, I wasn't really hot but I head sweat coming out of places I didn't know existed!  Thankfully we made it safe to land and I kissed the ground!  Then we had a two hour bus ride to the airport.  We stopped halfway and saw some more lava tunnels.  As we were almost there our driver started playing bon jovi and we all started singing.  It was a good day but I think waiting in the airport, we all wanted to kill eachother!  It was hot and there were lots of flies and we were tired.  We arrived in Quayaquil late and we had about a half hour in the mall to eat dinner.  I got mcdonalds and I was so hungry, okay Im allergic, but it was okay I took a benedryl.  I ordered a quarter pounder hamburger!  Im so embarrassed, when in my life do I even like Mcdonalds, let alone something my brother would order!  Then we went to dunkin donuts to fill up on donuts for breakfast and a chocolate shake!  Then we were off.  On the way back we were all talking about our families and what our siblings are like and I got to thinking how much I really love my younger brother, I don't know if I'm maturing but I really do miss him and wish we could be a lot closer when I get back!  I slept the rest of the way back to cuenca even through the turns of cajas.  It was about 10pm when I arrived back home!  I unpacked, showered, and went to bed.  Which I can only sleep on stomach because my butt got burned from snorkeling, who would have guessed?  Well Last night I had a nighmare that I was stuck in the coral reef and I was under water trapped!  I remember struggeling and trying to get out!  Well I woke up covered in cement!  I guess I must have thought my ceiling was the top of the water because there is now a huge hole punched through the ceiling!  Its pretty thick cement, which I can't even move or lift when I'm awake!  I have no idea what happened last night but I had to tell my parents because I had a mess everywhere and a huge hole in my ceiling!  My mom came in first because I just told them I had a problem in my bedroom!  She couldn't believe her eyes she just kept repeating, this is rare and said I must have had a nighmare!  Well then she got my dad and sure enough he said there was no way I could have done that!  It has never happened before and I have no marks on my hands but I had a lot of cement in my hair.  So weird I had no idea because I would have had to stand up in bed and I just don't understand!  Well the maestro is coming tomorrow to fix it I guess, I am just so embarrassed!  My first education class started today and we went to the Cedei school for kids.  By third grade they are all trilingual, which is awesome!  I spent a lot of time with the kids age 1 and half to age 6 and fell in love with the kids playing with blocks, good thing I get to go every week!  Then we saw the special education room and the speech therapy room!  So cool in the speech therapy room was a kid with down syndrome and he was doing a bubble activity like one my brother does!  The boy talked to me in perfect spanish and english and I was blown away as well as the speech therapist!  In the special ed. room there is a second grader who is blind and they had no idea because he has really good internal memory and can walk down stairs without help but when asked how many stairs he don't know!  He is even bilingual!  I want to be in this school everyday of the week!  On Monday they even have equine therapy!  So excited!  Today I cried because seeing those kids in special education and the boy with down syndrome made me miss my older brother and realize how special he is!  After class I had spanish and then was off the rest of the afternoon, but I had a lot to work on!  For lunch my mom made a meal I didn't like, it was rice and vegetables with a variety or fish, personally it smelled and tasted like the fish hatchery, no thank you!  Well time for bed and hopefully no more nightmares!  Chau!  Hasta luego