The Islands have called

     First off, just want to apologize I feel like I'm not blogging a whole lot I just feel like we're usually pretty busy or I'm tired by the time I should be writing this. Anyways, since I last wrote we spent one night in Guayquil the most populated city in Ecuador and finally travelled to the beautiful Galápagos Islands. Guayquil was a short stay as we were only there for a night. Most of the night was spent in class as we were getting prepared for the islands that awaited us for the coming week. One of the books we are reading for class, The Beak of the Finch, is about a couple whom have been studying on one of the islands, Daphne Major. They have come to this island which is only allowed for strictly their research in the idea of proving evolution among Darwin's finches. They have been wildly successful as they proved that the beaks of the finches on the island have evolved in their research study which is more rapid than what Darwin predicted in his theory. So we spent class time watching a documentary on them and learning more about their lives. 

     After this we fell asleep and got a very early wake-up call at 5 am to head to the airport to catch our flight. This was a bittersweet moment for us.  We were all super excited to leave and go to the long-awaited place we've been looking forward to but it was sad because we had to leave our guide Willie and bus driver, Reuben, whom we had gotten so close to. However, we will see Willie before we head home for one last Quito but we are still unsure if we will see Reuben. After getting through the airport, which requires more security baggage checking due to the restrictions place for ending the Galapagos we were ready to head out. We got on our plane and unfortunately had to sit on there for an hour due to the traffic flying into the Galapagos. 

      We waited patiently, yet slightly impatiently, for our arrival to the Galapagos. Most of us did our homework and various readings on the plane in order to be able to spend time seeing the islands when we arrived. The view from the airplane was breathtaking. The water is a beautiful blue-green color and the view of looking at all of the islands we've been discussing was awesome too! We landed on the island of Baltra which is just north of the island of Santa Cruz where we are staying. We were greeted then by our guide Fabio. Our class took a shift when we got to the islands as we were seperated into two groups depending on different assignment we picked out. It was difficult though for some of us as we have spent a lot of time with a group of 18 or so of us, while the groups were 14 each. 

      Going from Balta to Santa Cruz we had to take a short ferry ride over which was nothing for us. However, the weather was perfect and we were able to see our first sight of wildlife here. The first few wildlife we saw were a school of sardines and other various fish near the shore. Although we were all very excited to see this it wasn't near as amazing as what was yet to come! The islands are a little what I had expected but more unexpected I would say. I had gone in with the idea of being on some type of paradise with lucious green vegetation with sand and beaches all around. This was suprisingly not what I was welcomed with. To me when getting our first tour from the northern shore to the southern shore town of Puerto Ayora it felt like we were on a deserted island. 

      The vegetation was much different as all of the islands have been formed due to volcanic erruptions. There is a lot more cacti than expected as well the varying birds. On our drive to lunch and in beginning the exploration of the islands, we got to see our first famous galapagean animal, the Giant Tortoise!! They were huge and we even got to see some trying to mate! This was very sweet and we were all so stoked to fianlly see them! Due to a very long travel day we were very tired and so we decided to grab a quick dinner. This was an awesome dinner as we ate hamburgers cooked on a lava rock! It was great! Tomorrow we are off to a day on the boat! So hopefully no sunburns for us!