I'm here!! In the Galapagos!!

Hola a todos, estoy en los Galapagos!

Hi everybody, I'm here in the Galapagos! A brief overview of what's happened so far:

We flew out on Friday, Cleveland to Chicago to Miami to Guyaquil. We spent the night in a beautiful little hotel and then drove about four hours to Cuenca. The mountains are so beautiful. It was so awesome to be on solid ground, looking down on a blanket of clouds.

We got to the school and met our families. I'm living with a very nice couple, Jaime and Rita, who are probably in their 60s. They have three children who are all married and there are four grandchildren. I have yet to meet Rita's 104-year-old grandmother. Everyone is really friendly and they try to help me, but it's still pretty stressful. I felt pretty lonely on Saturday, even though I was surrounded by family. Yesterday was definitely easier. They speak so fast, and my head just spins when there are more than two people in the room. I think I understand about 65% of what's being said. I'll be glad to get into the Spanish classes so I at least feel like I'm making progress.

Right now nine of our twenty-four group members are on Santa Cruz, one of the Galapagos Islands. Dr. Melampy is here too. We had to be at the school at 3 AM, then we drove back to Guyaquil. That was a very unpleasant ride...it's incredibly twisty and bumpy and at that time of day and in the dark and all...only two of us threw up. I never get carsick, and I still felt really awful. From there, we flew to the island of Baltra, then had to stand up in a very full bus (it was like a roller coaster but we had to handle all the physics!) to get on a small boat that took us to Santa Cruz, then we had another very long, sitting down bus ride to the harbor. Then we took a dinghy out to our boat, the Golondrina, where we'll be living for the next week. Then we came back to the island. I felt like I'd never stay still again.

We had lunch, which was pretty good. I haven't encountered any really scary food yet, although I did see cuy (guinea pig) roasting yesterday. My family will appreciate this: I actually ate two pieces of shrimp today. I figured I'll never get it fresher than it is here. It didn't taste too bad, but I'm still not a fan of the texture.

After lunch we walked through the Galapagos National Park, which included a visit to the Charles Darwin Research Station and a chance to see lots of giant tortoises, including Lonesome George. I'll tell his story when I have more time.

I'm really looking forward to the next several days. I'll get to another Internet cafe as soon as I can. For now, saludos!!