Galapagos!

I am writing to you all from the island of Santa Cruz. Currently it is raining outside, sort of drizzling but still oppressively hot. After being on a boat for the last few days, I haven´t yet acquired my sea legs but on land I feel like I´m still rocking up and down on a boat. A bit strange, but interesting. On board, we all keep falling into each other, the walls, the railings, yeah. The crew just laughs at us. The islands are incredible. I didn´t quite believe it when people said you could walk right up the animals but it is true. I have taken pictures of animals not more than two feet away. It is amazing here. There is so much to see. The animals are beautiful and they are everywhere! Many a time I have had to watch my step so as to not squash an iguana, a booby, or a tortoise. We have hiked at least twice every day and snorkelled at least once. I am not the strongest swimmer by an stretch but I have had an incredible experience viewing the sea life. Moorish idols, angelish, parrotfish, sea urchins, and more! We´ve snorkelled by beaches, protuding rocks, and in a caldera. I am amazed every day by what I see. Everything here is so beautiful and so fragile. If I so wished, I could decimate booby nests. They´ve even built their nests on tourist trails! I have seen all three types of boobies, the blue footed, the red footed and the Nasca (which were formerly called the masked booby but are officially a new species, cool!) Yes, evolution is most certainly still in effect. The varieties of finches, Scalesia plants, tortoises, and boobies are examples of how selection has worked on different organisms. Oh adaptive radiation and speciation! Sea lions abound, they play with iguanas, I even saw one tug on an iguana´s tail, dragging it under water for a time before letting it escape. Most of the plants we´ve seen are spiky or bare. The landscape is quite rugged and barren in appearance but it supports a huge abundance of life. It has been awesome to see all these things for myself that I have read about it textbooks and National Geographic Magazine. The Charles Darwin Research Station had a nice area explaining the work they do to breed tortoises in captivity and release the offspring back into the wild to repopulate islands where their numbers have been depeleted. I saw the Sirenan, a ship that a foreign conservation organization gave to the station to use fo a number of years, since the station has such a shortage of funds. I supported the station in a small way with the purchase of a tank top with their emblem. Hopefully their good work can continue in the future. Oh the future. And life in general. The other night, just after celebrating our crossing of the equator (I took a sweet picture of our GPS reading "O") I stood on the back deck of the boat and just watched the stars, thinking about how great life truly is. Life indeed is beautiful. Life is beautiful and fragile and we should treasure every moment, even the everyday moments that we take for granted. There are many things that I have missed while here, and there are many experiences that have been amazing and I am glad to have had the opportunity to partake in. And of course experiences here that I would rather not repeat. And believe it or not, I can see the constellation Orion from this far south. So if you´re missing me, just look at the stars, find Orion, and know that I can see the very same stars. This trip has been absolutely incredible and I can´t wait to return home and share my experiences with you all. Tomorrow, we go to Fernandina and Isabela, where we stay in a hotel on shore. After that, we leave the Galapagos and return to the mainland. We´ll be going to Mindo (a cloud forest region) and Otavalo, a very famous market town. My trip is more than halfway over! That means that I will be back before any of us knows it, ready to adjust back to life in good old MN and share more of my stories with you!