There are so many highlights from my time at Jatun Sacha...Where to begin?! I ended up volunteering for 3 weeks at the station and saving my last week in the Galapagos for traveling to the other islands. As I mentioned in my last blog entry, every week and every day at the station was a different adventure. The day the station director came back from his vacation was definitely one highlight. Cesar has been the director of the Galapagos Jatun Sacha station for the last 11 years and you can tell that he loves his job. We were having a great time before he arrived, but we had a little issue with our personal items disappearing and ending up in the co-director's house here and there. He fixed that little issue straight away, kept us on our toes by quizzing us about the station, the endemic, native and introduced plant species on San Cristobal and then managed to entertain us with amusing "Spanglish" songs every night as well.
One Sunday night while everyone was washing up from dinner, the water turned brown and then just stopped working altogether. This had happened a couple of weeks before and that time it turned out that Hernan had accidentally turned the connection off above the station. Someone checked to make sure that the same didn't happen again this time and when they determined that it was likely due to upstream blockage due to the heavy rains of the day, I naively volunteered to help fix the water system at daybreak the next morning. Volunteering meant getting up at 5:15am and trekking through the jungle (machete in hand), followed by slipping and sliding down the trail to the river. Eduardo and I then swam and scaled our way down-river with extra tubing, wiring, a filter and other gear to fix the water system. The "system" consisted of a liter-sized Coke bottle with holes (a filter) and a series of rubber tubes leading from the river to the station's water tank. When we finally arrived (soaking wet) at the problem spot, we discovered that a large stick had somehow made it through the filter and lodged itself in one of the connectors. We dug it out, cleared the tube, and swam, scaled and macheted our way back to the station by 6:45am!
That same day I was assigned kitchen duty for the lunch meal, and since I was up so early already, I helped collect fruit from the property for the meal's juice and harvested vegetables from the station's garden for the group's lunch and then helped the cook chop and wash them as well. The experience of chopping down banana trees and climbing to collect limes, oranges, passion fruit and guava was sublime. I don't know if it was really a delicacy, but Hernan convinced me that wasp larvae was a tasty treat. I tried it and I can say I've eaten wasp now, but I wouldn't exactly recommend it as a snack...
Another morning we all piled into the back of the work truck as usual, but instead of heading for Galapaguera to help in the nursery or El Junco to plant grass and coffee trees, we drove for the port to help a young woman collect rocks to construct the foundation of her house. It was really hot and hard work, but the woman was so grateful that she was brought to tears when we made our goodbyes at the end of the day.
As if we weren't already hot, that afternoon, we learned how to process and roast coffee beans. We used a hand-crank to take some of the shell off of the coffee beans, then used a fan to expose the beans and then took the remaining shell off of the beans by hand. I was in charge of lighting and stoking the fire (due to my camping background and the fact that I live in Alaska)...I had a little trouble getting it going because of the dampness of everything...the paper, the wood, the matches...We roasted the beans on the fire for over an hour, stirring them constantly and enjoying the amazing aroma. Despite the heat, it was a great learning experience.
Some of my favorite things about volunteering actually took place in port. I spent every weekend in port with the other volunteers. Every Monday I would vow to stay the following weekend at the station and not venture into port with all of its temptations and conveniences and every Thursday afternoon I would start singing our favorite song....Para-para-paradise...The mosquitos would drive me out every week despite my resolve...
I had some great times in port at Aqui Si and at Mi Grande (with "Happy Man"). Every Friday and Saturday night, the volunteers would venture to the pier at the end of town to watch hundreds of sting rays feed on tiny fish under the lights. We spent one Friday afternoon at Puerto Chino, voted one of the top 10 beaches in South America, and another Friday at Loberia, swimming with giant sea turtles and friendly sea lions. One weekend, five of us ladies managed to persuade the local Police to let us watch the sunset and stay on Playa Carola after dark, despite all of the warning signs prohibiting use of the beach after 5pm. We watched an amazing sunset that night and drank the white wine that Emily had stashed in her backpack. A truly magical evening.
After my three weeks at Jatun Sacha, two other volunteers and I said our good-byes and headed to Santa Cruz. On an early Sunday morning, we boarded the M/V Osprey Adventure and bumped along in the sea for 2 hours to Santa Cruz. We had heard horrible things about the ride to Santa Cruz from some of the volunteers that had done the same trip a couple of weeks before, but Jennifer, Helen and I didn't think that this first boat ride was all that bad...
We got up early the next day to hit more of the highlights of Santa Cruz. We visited the Tuneles del Amor (creepy and dark!), Garrapatero (amazing beach), and Las Grietas (brackish, clear pools). It was a full day but we enjoyed every minute of our sight-seeing.
Helen, Jennifer and I then jumped on another overcrowded boat and bumped along for a couple of hours to Isla Floreana where I swam with penguins (they are fast!), visited another tortoise rescue area and black sand beach, imagined myself living at the time of the pirates at Las Rocas de Piratas, and spied a whale on the return trip to Santa Cruz that night.
Finally, we made it to Isla Isabela and realized why all of the volunteers love this island. It is hard to describe why, but as soon as I landed on Isabela, I wanted to stay forever! We planned to stay two nights and that just didn't seem to be enough time. That night, Jennifer and I talked to our hotel host at the Gran Tortugua Hostel and arranged to stay an extra day on the island.
The streets are covered in sand that feels like flour under your feet. You really don't even need to wear shoes around town. The beach at the end of town is endless and completely empty, save for the marine iguanas wandering across it. The Sierra Negra looms above the mellow beach town. While we were there we hiked Sierra Negra and were lucky enough to have great weather and saw the 2nd largest volcano crater in the world. We then kept hiking to Volcan Chico and took in a view of the entire island, including all of its volcanos, smelled the sulfur from the active side of the volcano and headed back to town. We visited the famous Tintoreras and saw penguins, blue footed boobies, a marine iguana "nursery," and swam with sea lions.
I spent the next day recovering from all of the sight-seeing on the beach and visiting the flamingos on a walk to Isabela's tortoise recovery center and then relaxed, listening to my tunes on the two boat rides back to San Cristobal.
I was due to leave the islands on Sunday, May 27 (according to the Jatun Sacha office in Quito that arranged my flights and didn't happen to have a printout to give me...a sign perhaps?). When I went to the airport to check in, I found out that there are no flights on Sundays. Luckily, I sort of planned for just this kind of mishap by scheduling my flight from Quito to Miami for May 30. After the initial shock of realizing that I probably should have taken the flight on Saturday and might miss my flight back to the United States if I couldn't get to Quito by May 30, I went to the beach...
The next morning I decided to go back to Jatun Sacha to see if Cesar could help me fix my minor dilemma. He assured me that on Monday he would fix everything. Well, he was right. By Monday afternoon I had a flight arranged to leave the next day and I was able to tell everyone at the station good-bye a second time. That chance alone was worth any minor stress my missed flight may have caused.
Ciao Jatun Sacha! I hope I return someday...
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