Attack of the Sea Lions: Galapagos Islands Week 1

BEWARE: This will be a long post because it will be slightly more than just one week worth of material and I LOVE the Galapagos Islands. It's my favorite place I've been to date. Without further ado, let's get into it!

Day 1

When traveling to the Galapagos, you have to take one of only three daily flights to get to San Cristobal, which is the island I lived on. I woke up in the morning and headed to the airport. At the airport, you have to go through several special customs declarations before even boarding the plane as well as filling out some unique checkpoints. You have to also be approved by someone to even enter the Galapagos and must hold onto this paper for when you get to the Galapagos. This all takes quite a bit of time, so you'll want to get to the airport super early if you are going there.

When I was finally able to board the plane in Quito, we took a quick jump over to Guayaquil, the other major city in Ecuador. Here, half the people de-planed and the plane was sprayed down while those of us headed to the Galapagos stayed on it. Then, the rest of the plane was filled with others headed to San Cristobal as well. It was a unique experience to stay on the plane for a cleaning and filling up again.

When I landed in San Cristobal, my new host dad Eduardo picked me up from the airport. We took a five minute cab ride home. You can make it through the entire city of Puerto Baquerizo Moreno in five minutes. Puerto Baquerizo Moreno is the only city on the entire island of San Cristobal. Though there is one highway that cuts through the island, all other homes are in the country. Once we made it to his home, I was shown to my room. I shared with an Australian named Gabby, but she wasn't there at the time. I sat down to unpack and next thing you know, I woke up to a strange girl in there shaking with excitement. She introduced herself as Gabby and talked about her recent scuba diving experience. She had never been before that day but was dating a scuba diving instructor on the island. He had taken her. Pay close attention here because this will become relevant later!

After she showered and changed, she took me all around town. Our host sister Dayana also came with us. Dayana was 17 at the time and had been dating this boy for about a month. Dayana really wanted to get a tattoo and her boyfriend knew of a place. However, she was really scared to get it done, so she wanted Gabby to go with her. Gabby, Dayana, and I went with Dayana's boyfriend to this super sketchy house and got this tattoo done. Dayana and her boyfriend got matching anchor tattoos. I'm honestly not sure why they did it because they had literally been dating for a month at this point. It was pretty gross and sketchy, but it happened. It was definitely illegal so that was a great experience for my first few hours in the Galapagos *face palms*.

After Dayana and her boyfriend got tattoos, Gabby and I left to finish walking to town. Our host family's house was up about four blocks onto this hill. It had great ocean views, but it took a little bit to get into town. We stopped by the dive shop of the boy she was dating. His name was Jose and his boss Will worked together well. Jose was basically a weed addict who watched the shop. Will took care of the diving itself. Their friend Cristofer also hung around the shop a ton and was always super high. However, they were all super nice.

We finished our walk around town by stopping on the main street at what I called "Sea Lion Beach." On San Cristobal, sea lions literally walked down the main street with you. They all congregated on one main beach that was COVERED in sea lions all the time. There was a playground right nearby that kids could hang out on as long as the sea lions weren't trying to take over the entire playground and barking up a storm.

We went home for dinner, and I was able to meet my host mom Lucia and Lucia and Eduardo's ten-year-old daughter Analia. Analia is such a cutie and became a huge reason the Galapagos is my favorite place ever. After dinner, Gabby and I changed before heading out for the night. We met up with Gabby's two friends from Norway, Simen and Hallvard, and her friend Arturo from Germany. We all headed to a bar together and had a fun night chatting. Hallvard was leaving the next day with Gabby. However, I got along really well with Simen. We became super close friends throughout our time in the Galapagos together. Arturo was a smoking and marijuana addict, so we didn't vibe super well, but he was really mellow so it was fine. We finished our night walking home and making plans to meet up the next morning.

Day 2

In my journal, I literally recorded that this day was "one of the best days I've had in years." The day began with a relaxed walk to Punta Carola, one of the beaches within a ten minute walk of my house. Punta Carola was a super nice beach. You could literally walk right into the water and snorkel. There were tons of rocks with coral right on the beach. Huge parrotfish came into these rocks as well as tons of sea turtles and sea lions. There were also a plethora of iguanas and birds on the beach itself. It was always an adventure to see all the animals and sea creatures here.

To get to Punta Carola, you had to walk right by the elementary school I worked at. As we walked by, my host family showed me all the sights. My whole host family (Eduardo, Lucia, Dayana, and Analia) all came. I met up with Arturo, who was super hungover, and Hallvard. We mostly just laid out on the beach for the entire day.

When it came time for lunch, I walked into town with Arturo and Hallvard. We found this delicious food shack right on a pier overlooking a lighthouse. I had papas rellenas for lunch while the boys all ate various kinds of burritos. Yum!

After lunch, we walked all over town before meeting up with Simen Lind, our friend from Norway. Simen ended up being one of my very best friends in the Galapagos. He was the absolute best friend for me and so kind all the time. We also had tons of super deep discussions about everything from religion to politics to sex. He wasn't afraid to ask me any questions about being from the US or being a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and I loved him for it.

Sunset from Sea Lion Beach

We ended up walking around and just talking all the way up until sundown. We watched the sunset from a pier right near Sea Lion Beach. San Cristobal was really good about having tons of public benches and seating right on the water so you could watch amazing sunsets like this one while spending time with friends and loved ones.

After watching a beautiful sunset, I walked back up the hill to my house for dinner at 6:30. Dinner was at the same time every night, and we were asked to text our host parents if we would not be there for dinner so they wouldn't prepare a meal for us. When I arrived at the house, everyone was gone for a party, so Eduardo took me out for fried chicken before he went back to a soccer game with his family. Every place I have been in South America is obsessed with fried chicken and is 100% completely convinced that everyone in the US eats fried chicken at least twice a week. Well, joke's on them: I've probably only had fried chicken maybe 5 times in the US and I ate it all the time in South America.

After dinner with Eduardo, I came home to a quiet house and ended up just calling my mom and talking to her. Funny story: it turns out I had accidentally only taken my contacts for my right eye. I had left my entire several months supply of left eye contacts at home. I wear daily contacts because I am constantly in the pool or ocean, and it is really nice to be able to switch out my contacts every day. Luckily, I had just enough contacts to make it to mid-February when my mom came to visit if I was careful.

Day 3

After waking up in the morning, I met up with Simen and Artur in town like we had planned the day before. We caught a taxi together and made our way to a place called La Loberia. To get to La Loberia, you had to walk about a half mile long trail next to volcanic rock covered with iguanas. However, the reward in the end made it all worth it. La Loberia is a beach with a massive bay created by natural volcanic rock formations. This beach is known for constantly having tons of sea lions. Every time I went, I would see at least 10-15 sea lions playing around. There was also a small cove where baby sea lions went to play. Tourists would try to get close, and it was always very exciting to see the parents snapping at the tourists dumb enough to try to touch their babies.

La Loberia also had great snorkeling. We spent the entire day at La Loberia rotating between snorkeling and just laying out. At one point while following a sea turtle, a massive sea lion cut across our paths. It really was an extraordinary sight to see.

When we eventually got hungry, we made our way back to town by hiking and catching another taxi. We ate lunch at the same pier restaurant for $5. A sea lion walked up and came right over by us just to say hello. He ended up staying there the entire time we ate.

We parted ways in the late afternoon after walking all around town. I went home and met another volunteer who would be living at the house with me. His name was Dave Boddie. Dave was born in New Zealand but spent time in the Australian army. From there, he moved to Africa and worked as a park ranger in National Parks in both Namibia and Angola. He was quite interesting to meet and talk to. You will definitely hear more about Dave later! We were both very excited to relax and volunteer in the Galapagos.

Mama sea lion reunited with her baby

Day 4

I started out the day by waking up early to meet my school class. I ended up getting assigned to a class of 25 kindergarteners. They were ADORABLE! I absolutely love ages 4-6, so the kids were right within my favorite age group. We learned how to subtract through various problems on the board. It was really good for me to learn better how to teach kids in Spanish and begin to understand more about how other cultures learn. In the US, we would learn this probably with blocks or other learning tools. In the Galapagos, we used strictly finger counting and the board. It was quite different from what I'm used to.

After we finished with our math for the day, we got to play outside. We combined with the other kindergarten class and ran around all over. We had a large cement playing area where many kids would play soccer. There were some kindergarteners who could definitely outplay me. To be fair, I'm not great at soccer, but still... KINDERGARTEN! I mostly ran around the cement area with the other kids playing tickle monster, where I would try to tickle them and play tag. It was quite fun.

Sunset from the pier at sea lion beach

After getting done with kindergarten at 12, I went home for lunch before going for a walk with Dave. We ended up walking all over town for about three hours. We watched the sunset and then headed home. He had some really interesting stories about life in Australia, New Zealand, and various African countries. I always loved to hear his life story and how different it was from my own experience.

Day 5

I spent the morning teaching kids how to write their letters. The teacher I worked with in the Galapagos had a very traditional style of teaching and wanted the teachers to copy letters each 5-10 times in addition to writing words. In kindergarten, they were learning cursive, so many of the kids were, quite understandably, struggling with the letter connection. I helped motivate the kids to keep writing and finish their assignments. In particular, I worked with this little boy named Diego. Diego just wanted to play, so I typically made his assignments into games. In addition to the writing, we did a little bit of math before playing outside on the playground the rest of the day.

After work, Dave and I went to La Loberia. He hadn't been to the beach in a long time just to relax because of his job, so he loved being there. After spending the afternoon there just chatting, we walked back to the main road to find no taxis or anything. We walked nearly the entire road back to town, which has to be a good 2-3 miles. Luckily, it was sunset, so it was a truly beautiful walk. Eventually, a taxi stopped and was able to give us a ride the rest of the way into town.

At home, we ate dinner with our host family and played games with our host sister Analia. Analia hated Dave for some reason, and neither of them could communicate with one another, so I had a really fun time hearing the commentary from both of them in their native languages. Overall, it was a really fun time just hanging out with my host family and Dave.

Day 6

Note: This day has a slow beginning, but the end of the day was one of my favorite days in existence, so please enjoy all the videos and photos of the last three hours of the day throughout the whole post.

On this day, work was really rough. The teacher assigned the kindergarteners to write 29 words before they were able to do anything else. Because this was in cursive, this was quite difficult for most of the students. It was not a wildly pleasant experience for me trying to wrangle students to do what she wanted. She didn't really want to help out with anything. Instead, she preferred to sit in the back and play on her phone. She would check the kids off in the back when they were done with what they needed to be.

Sunset at Punta Carola

After a rough day at work, I returned home for a quick lunch before leaving with Dave for downtown. He wanted to grab a beer and use the best wifi on the island, which was at one of the cafes by the marina. While he was checking up on his cheetah (he rescued a cheetah on one of the preserves he worked on, and the cheetah refused to eat without him present), I was texting Simen and Artur, two other volunteers. Simen and Artur met up with us at the cafe, and we all decided to hang out for a bit. We ended up spending the rest of the afternoon and evening just enjoying each others' company.

Unfortunately, they all wanted to walk around town for a bit and get drunk before leaving for the beach. We spent all the way until 5:30pm in town walking around doing basically nothing other than drinking. Because I don't drink, this was not particularly fun for me. When we finally started walking towards the beach at Punta Carola, we had to stop for elotes because they were all starving. This took more time, and I'm not gonna lie: I was pretty annoyed with the whole lot of them.

When we got to the beach, it was basically sunset, so I only went in the water for a super quick dip. I got out of the water to dry while the boys all went in. They were super drunk by this point, so their mental faculties were not all the way there. You'll notice that in each of the videos, Dave has a beer in his hand. Artur was basically passed out in the sand. Somehow, Simen, despite being ridiculously skinny, had an alcohol tolerance like nothing I've ever seen before. He appeared to be totally fine, in spite of matching Artur and Dave beer for beer.

I spent the rest of the day just sitting and watching the sunset, which was one of the best I've ever seen in my entire life. The sky was light for so long, and the vibrant colors were incredible. I also had a lot of peace just being able to hang out and enjoy the sunset without the boys for the majority of the time as they were in the ocean. I absolutely love sunsets, so this was a true treat for me. I definitely enjoy sunsets more than the average person.

What you can see at left here is my favorite video of myself probably ever. I can remember everything about this moment from the waves crashing to my incredible joy and peace. I felt happier in this video than I've ever felt before. I honestly can't remember a moment in time where I felt more like myself in my truest form. This is the kind of happiness I strive to feel throughout the rest of my life.

Throughout all these videos, you can see sea lions swimming, jumping, and overall just living their best lives. While I was standing in the ocean for that last video, I was almost hit by the cutest little baby sea lion. This happened all the time in the Galapagos. Sea lions would come out of nowhere and give you the biggest scare because they are huge, aggressive, and give you no warning when they are coming or where they are going. This little dude was no exception. He disappeared as soon as the video ended, which just made me laugh.

Sunset hike from Punta Carola

When the sun had almost completely set, we decided to head back out to the main road. And let me tell you: wrangling three ridiculously drunk boys to hike half a mile in sand and then walk a mile on the road to get home is not wildly easy. The bugs were also out in full force because it was twilight near water. I normally don't get bitten by bugs frequently, but the bugs in the Galapagos got me good. However, I did buy the most amazing liquid bug spray at a shop in town, so I didn't have quite as big of a problem. On the other hand, the boys were getting bitten left and right with no stops. Seeing drunk people try to swat mosquitoes was entertaining to say the least.

We ended the night with a baby sea lion encounter. In the Galapagos, you are supposed to stay six feet away from all wildlife, so I had an exciting time trying to convince Dave, Simen, and Artur that it was a good idea to leave the sea lion be, particularly when he came out onto the main street where we were walking. We ended up making it out just fine and went home to bed after a long and interesting night together.

Passionfruit Cheesecake from the bakery down the street

Day 7

After an eventful day the day before, I decided to have a much more mellow experience the next day. I'm pretty sure Dave was quite hungover as after work when we went to the beach, he took a nap the entire time. We eventually came home for dinner before leaving again with our host sister, Analia.

Analia was one of my favorite people in the Galapagos Islands. I still talk to her today, almost two years later. We got along so well, despite her being 10 years my junior. She's just such a sweet and happy person. I love her!

Dave and I took Analia to the bakery down the street for a treat after dinner. They had the most incredible passionfruit cheesecake that I could absolutely never refuse. She got a caramel filled croissant, which was also a delicious option. We ate our treats while walking up the four block long hill back to her house. I always joked that I was working off the dessert calories just on the walk back up to the house because it was so steep. Unfortunately, I don't think this is true, but a girl can hope.

Analia and I in a picture she decorated

After our quick dessert run, I taught the family some English and taught Dave some Spanish at the same time. Dave was much less motivated to learn Spanish than they were to learn English. Analia and I also took some pictures with filters on Snapchat. She always wanted to decorate pictures of us, which is what you can see here. I truly do miss Analia!

Day 8

This day was a Friday, and every Friday, we went to some fields across the street from the school with our kindergarten class and the other kindergarten class. We let the kids run around free for the most part. We typically brought soccer balls and legos with us. The fields had concrete bleachers, so some of the kids played legos while others ran around exhausting themselves. I loved to teach the kids new games, like Red Light, Green Light, Mother, May I?, and various yoga poses. The kids thought I was the funnest person to be around, so they listened to me quite well. We also had some vicious games of monster tag where I had to pretend to be a monster and go around "eating" the kids until they were on my team. I just love playing with kids and seeing their imaginations at work!

That night, I went into town with Dave to meet up with Simen and Artur. At this point in time, Dave, who was a chain smoker, was trying to quit smoking. I ended up getting really frustrated with Artur, who repeatedly offered him smokes, despite knowing Dave was trying to quit. I literally told Artur to stop offering him cigarettes, but he wouldn't. To be fair, he and Dave were pretty drunk, so this probably didn't help my cause. I ended up going home around 9:30 to call one of my best friends, McKenna King. We talked for over an hour about everything and nothing all at once, and it was fabulous. She's an amazing friend, and we always have a good time together!

Analia and I with the heart filter

Day 9

I had an absolutely amazing Saturday that week. I spent the morning at home with my host family just talking about life and getting to know them better. Dave was asleep literally the entire morning because he was so hungover from the day before. However, I didn't really miss him because he wouldn't have been able to converse with the host family anyways, given his lack of Spanish skills. Mostly, I just loved being able to spend time with my host family getting to know them better without anyone else around. Analia and Dayana, my host sisters, and I looked through my entire camera roll at all the pictures and videos I have. I always love to look through my camera roll, so it was really fun to talk about with other people, particularly two people who had never been to the US before.

In the afternoon, Dave and I went to town to meet up with Simen. We just wandered around chatting before Dave got too tired and went back home. I'm pretty sure he was just wildly hungover from his crazy night the day before. Simen and I kept walking and ended up at our favorite dive shop. Gabby, our Australian friend, had introduced us around earlier in the week, so we knew the owner Will and the other people who worked there.

While we were at the dive shop, Will was having a problem with finding someone to watch the shop while he ran some errands. He asked me to and told me I would be able to dive for free if I did this for him. I, of course, agreed. He told me to watch the shop for a few hours and then to run home and grab my swimsuit so we could go on a night snorkel with some customers.

At the shop, I met these four crazy boys from Bogota, Colombia. They had come to the Galapagos to learn how to scuba dive. I ended up chatting with them for several hours before I found out they were the customers for the night snorkel, which I was very happy about.

When Will made it back to the shop, I ran home to change and managed to catch this stunning sunset from the roof of my host house before running back down to the shop.

At the shop, we got all the gear together before loading onto bikes. We rode bikes through town while carrying the gear until we got to the entrance of Punta Carola. Once there, we dropped the bikes and continued on foot. We walked on the normal hike and then walked up to the top of a mountain. It was one of the highest points on the island. This point also had an incredible viewpoint of the ocean, and you could see the entire bay below. The wave sounds were amazing from so high. To get there, we walked up what felt like 400 flights of stairs, but was probably 20 flights tops, before we made it to our destination. And it was WORTH IT!

Will called this tour "La Excursion de Las Estrellas" (aka the star tour) because the stars were incredible. The boys drank an entire bottle of Equatorian tequila at the top of the mountain. When the boys were sufficiently buzzed, we walked down to the bay entrance on another hiking trail and changed into our wetsuits. We got completely ready with our snorkeling gear before grabbing flashlights and jumping in. We swam to the center before Will instructed us to turn our lights off.

When Will told us to turn the lights off, we were all a bit skeptical but decided to anyways. What Will hadn't told us was that the water was full of bioluminescence everywhere! The bioluminescence was so vibrant that you could write your name and have it stay for a few moments before slowly fading away. We had sea lions in the water with us and could fully track where they were with no lights on based purely on the vibrant bioluminescence. Will explained to us that this was the other reason for the star name of the tour; there were stars in the sky and the ocean.

One of my biggest regrets in the Galapagos is not having any pictures of or videos of this amazing occurrence. I also wish I had footage of us getting out of the water. This particular bay is surrounded by volcanic rock, and there are no ladders to get out. You have to time your entrance and exit perfectly or you get slammed into the rocks. It was always an adventure getting in and out of the water. However, when everyone made it safely out, we changed, gathered our gear, and hiked back to the bikes before riding back into town.

After one of the most amazing experiences of my life, I FaceTimed both my mom and my sister Ashlyn to tell them about it. My mom was planning to visit me, and I wanted her to take the tour as well. It truly was an absolutely surreal experience for me. I was so glad I had decided to work at the dive shop!

Life Lessons

Always say yes if someone asks you to watch their dive shop in exchange for free diving.

Make friends with people from new countries! They will teach you so much about the world.

Watch as many sunsets as possible, particularly on the beach.

Watch out for sea lions, or you WILL get slapped.

Make friends with locals!