Jackidoesecuador

        The famous small Galapagos penguin!       The rock.       Me, getting ready to snorkle.       The Snorkeling crew, 80% of which were in their twenties.       My hostal, with the ocean right outside my back door.        It's strangely exactly 2 hours between each island, which you have to pass in a "ferry." These ferries go about as fast as the speed of light, crashing down slapping across the waves and causing the passengers to have their backs raised off the seats and pummeled back down into them.  In the past 3 days, I have had to ride 3 of these merciless ferries. Then one more, to go snorkeling.  My back feels like I need 50 massages.  It is hard to walk; it is hard to sit.  I have to be battered by one more of these ferries to get back to San Cristobal Island  this afternoon, from which I will fly out of the Galapagos tomorrow morning.  It will b...

      I'm on a little island. How little?  120 people live here. There is one Tienda (store), which sells things to foreigners for exorbitant prices($4 for an ice cream bar), three restaurants  (poles and thatched roofs outside), a black beach (thus, the name of the house I'm staying at:  Black Beach House) and a white beach, porous, jet black lava rocks (and boulders), and three churches.  I suppose I should've used semicolons, but, eh.      A church. The Charles Darwin Center on Santa Cruz Island. Black Beach House Where I learned to snorkle. Our back yard. Another church. Today's lunch Running into school kids. I went out to the drinking establishment in our back yard with Claudia from Portland, Oregon-my new housemate. We drank something made of sugar cane and lemon, then walked 1/2 mile down gravel roads in the dark to go to "The Postoffice Restaurant." lol I had swordfish, beans, rice and avacado. It were good!  Claudia and I ...

 Hola! Como estas?  Por mi muy bueno!   After listening to Kim talk to people in Spanish for two weeks,  I have actually picked up some.  She did NOT follow me to the islands because-thank GOD  she can't afford it; nobody I've met on the Ecuador mainland had been to the Galapagos. Took the flight to the Galapagos Islands yesterday at noon.  Arrived in time to case the town out, walking four blocks in all directions. I'm on San Crystobal Island. Stayed one night in one place, then am staying where the most sea lions congregate on the islands-again, an oceanfront view, tonight.   Last night, I met a German surgeon and her Dental something-or-other husband.  Everyone here has a buck to spare. This morning I met Kaki and Alex, a 40-something Indian couple from Dallas.  We became fast friends and they joined me on my taxi ride to two different places in the Northern Highlands;  one is the most beautiful, rocky beach in all the ...