I got home safely on the 18th. I’ve been trying to catch up on life since I’ve been back.

Since I last updated, I went on an awesome day trip snorkeling and hiking with some friends, worked my butt off finishing graphics, and spent a fun day in Quito visiting the Pichincha volcano.

I also had a few technology scares. Everything started going wrong at once–my camera was acting up, I lost my phone, and I thought my laptop had died on the plane ride. Luckily, I found my phone, and my laptop is alive.

I’m really excited about getting back to campus, although I really miss the Galapagos.

Here are some pictures from my final days:

I finally got some ceviche--it had fish, shrimp, and octopus in it.

The beginning of our hiking adventure

The view from the top of Frigatebird Trail

The view from above of where we snorkeled

The Darwin Statue-it's supposed to be at the place where he first landed in the Galapagos

I love snorkeling with sea lions--they'll get so close they're almost touching you

Snorkeling

Loberia, a beach on San Cristobal covered in black volcanic rock

At Loberia

The contrast between the bright green fauna, the light-colored sand and the black rocks is striking

15,000 feet in the air at the Pichincha volcano. That's Quito in the background.

A church on the volcano

The long and winding road up to the top

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It’s crunch time here in San Cristobal. All of the photogs are rushing to finish their stories, and we’re all rushing to finish our graphics and programming. We only have ONE WEEK left here! It’s so hard to believe that I’ve been away for three weeks.

It’s kind of weird here in that when I was in Costa Rica, I missed American things a lot more, but here, I don’t really miss anything other than my family and friends (oh, and American ketchup). I could seriously live here.

Lately we’ve been having weird brown-outs where part of the city loses power. Luckily, not all of it loses power at the same time. So when the power goes out at school, the power is on at the bars and at the hotel and vice versa. I’ve heard three different stories about why this keeps happening, but the most legitimate one is that the island is split into three grids. Normally each grid has a generator, but one of them went out awhile ago, and another one of them went out last month, so the island is taking turns using the power. It doesn’t make a lot of sense, though, when you consider that we didn’t have any issues with electricity before. We keep joking that running 20 MacBook Pros all day are crashing the grid.

A plan to the tortoise reserve in the highlands is in the works. Hopefully I’ll go before I leave. Everyone is rushing to finish so that we can have free time at the end of the trip to take day trips. A lot of people want to go to other islands, but I’ve already been to both Isabela and Santa Cruz, so there’s no need to spend the money on the boats. I’m looking forward to some beach time and venturing to the highlands.

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I’ve had a ridiculously good past few days. All of the group is now here in San Cristobal, and yesterday we took a day trip to Kicker Rock to go snorkeling. At Kicker Rock I saw sea turtles, starfish, and lots of other fish. But my favorite part was another area where we snorkeled where we could swim with the sea lions. One got so close that it brushed up against me. 

The next 11 days are going to be really busy, but everything seems to be coming together. Everyone’s stories are awesome, and of course the graphics are going to be amazing.

Here are some pictures from Kicker Rock:

Leaving the port

Our boat

Erin with Ronnie, the boat captain. Check out the hat I gave him.

Kicker Rock--We snorkeled through the channel in the middle.

Ronnie's boat

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So after riding in a bus, plane, bus, boat, bus, and boat, we´re finally in Isabela. The traveling took a lot out of me, but we got to see Santa Cruz on the way, meaning I get to see all three islands we´re staying on.

It´s beautiful here. I wish I could show you pictures, but the internet, although it´s cheap at only $1.50 an hour, is also unbearably slow.

So far I´ve seen giant iguanas on the beach, sea lions, crabs, turtles, Darwin finches, and pelicans. The wildlife is amazing. You can literally get within three inches of the iguanas.

Some of us also went to the Wall of Tears yesterday. Apparently the government tried to make prisoners build this wall around the city, but there were no roads and the volcanic rock is really sharp, so a bunch of people died and the wall was never finished.

We´ve been mainly eating fish, rice, and potatoes for every meal, but I´m not complaining, seeing as how seafood and potato products are my favorite foods. We also get soup with every meal, which is always delicious. Last night we had shrimp, and we also had chicken before.

Yesterday I felt kind of uninspired and unproductive because everyone was just getting started on their projects, so I didn´t have a lot to do in terms of graphics, but today everything seems to be running smoothly and progress is being made. I´m on the computer looking up numbers for graphics.

Like I said, I can´t upload pictures, but maybe I´ll get around to it in San Cristobal. I leave on Thursday. Wish me luck.

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We went to orientation for half of the day today, then took a tour of Quito in the afternoon. This is mainly just a photo post with goodies for y’all to look at.

I won’t be able to update for the next week or so because I’m going to be on Isabela, which is really isolated and internet access is questionable.

The view from my hotel in Quito

<3 Quito

Part of Quito--it's a HUGE city

Virgen del Panecillo

One of the plazas

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Not much to update, but I wanted to let people know I got here safe.

The flight was fine, other than being like two hours late so we didn’t get to the hotel until 2:30 a.m. last night, then had to wake up around 7:30.

Some blurbs I wrote down:

No matter how much I fly, I’m still fascinated by staring out the window–everything seems to small and irrelevant, and those housing communities seem even creepier.

I read my horoscope in the airport in Atlanta. It talked about living on the edge, but not other people’s edge. I have to find my own unique edge, but not get too close to the edge. It was both amusingly ridiculous and surprisingly accurate considering that I’m in Ecuador.

On the flight I watched Benjamin Button and totally cried while sitting next to an 8-year-old who was giggling at Yes Man the whole time.

When we got off of the plane in Ecuador, we had to wear masks over our noses and mouths, evidently because of the swine flu epidemic. Americans are a threat to Ecuadorian national security and the health of the country. It was all a big joke because everyone just took them off as we stood in line for over an hour waiting for customs. Then they legit took our temperature with some kind of temperature-sensing device.

A picture for your amusement:

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I’m one more week away from the Galapagos Islands! I’ve made a packing list and done a bunch of research.

Here’s a rough itinerary:

I leave on the 18th. We’ll be in Quito, Ecuador, for a couple of nights. Then from there, I’ll be on Isabela for around 5 days, during which I don’t think I’ll have internet access. But I should be able to post after that when I’ll be on San Cristobal, which’ll be from June 25-July 15. Then it’s Quito for a day, then back home on July 18th.

Also, update: I’ve now synced my Facebook and Twitter with WordPress so it should link to updates whenever I update my blog. Sweet.

Here’s a map to give you an idea of the geography:

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I’ll be in the Galapagos Islands this summer from mid-June until mid-July, and I’ve decided I’m going to use this blog to write about my adventures. Internet access is sketchy, from what I’ve heard, so I’ll probably type up entries and post them when I can. But this makes it easier to update my friends and family on my adventures.

To the designers out there, while we’re in the Galapagos, we’re working on building a multimedia website to document and explore interaction between humans and the environment. There are maybe 15ish photojournalism students going, who will be making photo and video documentaries, and about 5ish designers that will be designing and building the website, as well as putting together infographics for the site. This is the website from last summer’s program, which went to Thailand.

Originally published at Kristen E. Long's WordPress. Please leave any comments there.