wait, there are people in galápagos?

A mural in Puerto Ayora, Santa Cruz depicting the history of the islands


Puerto Villamil, Isabela


Puerto Villamil, Isabela


Puerto Baquerizo Moreno, San Cristóbal


Malecón in Puerto Ayora, Santa Cruz

When I tell stories about my trip, most people are surprised to find out that people live on the Galápagos Islands. I share these photographs to show the three towns we stayed in; all with populations, hotels, restaurants and modern amenities.

Puerto Ayora on the island of Santa Cruz is the largest of the three towns. It's home to the Charles Darwin Research Station, where Lonesome George lives. Puerto Baquerizo Moreno on the island of San Cristóbal is the island's second largest city. It's the capital city and home to the university and a fantastic interpretation center. Puerto Villamil on the island of Isabela is a smaller, sleepier town on the archipelgo's largest island. The streets are sand and the people are beautiful. If you go to Bar de Beto (arguably the island's best bar) you might even get some chewed gum in your popcorn. Yum!

The islands' population is estimated to be between 30,000 and 40,000. Last year, more than 100,000 tourists visited the Galápagos. This is a major concern to the islands that are 97 percent National Park. Restrictions have been placed on both tourism and immigration. UNESCO also added the Galápagos to the World Heritage Site “in danger” list under the recommendation of the World Conservation Union. If you want to read more, check this out.

galapagueno flags

Puerto Villamil, Isabela


Puerto Villamil, Isabela


Ferry from Baltra to Santa Cruz

Flags need the wind to fly. Six hundred miles off the coast of South America, the Galápagos has plenty of this element. The flags fly proud, tattered and torn, from docks, boats and rooftops. Specks of color amidst clouds of grey.

pablo corral vega

What more appropriate place to find beautiful light than inside a photographer's home? While in Quito, National Geographic photographer Pablo Corral Vega invited us to his home. Pablo's home is a piece of art, from the photos on the walls to the incredible empañadas on the kitchen table. We came with a few questions about taking pictures, we left with all sorts of wisdom about life and its meaning.

Check out Nuestra Mirada, an online community for Latin American photographers created by Pablo.

amable

On the island of Isabela there is a man called Amable. His name means "kind" in English. He owns a small bar and sings songs about his love, home and land. There are one and the same - Galápagos.

lonesome george

He's the last Pinta Tortoise in the world. He's a symbol for conservation. He's everyone's favorite tortoise. If you roll your eyes and think, "A tortoise? C'mon. Who cares?" I challenge you to read the book Lonesome George. It's a fantastic read on Galápagos, and it makes the reader keenly aware of human impact on nature. Nature can be strong. Nature can be fragile.

the dogs of ecuador

Quito


Mindo


Isabela, Galápagos Islands

machete man in mindo

He's in his mid-80s and still uses a machete for about an hour a day. He calls it easy work.

mindo's magic

Chocolarte



Three weeks after the fact, our kids were still talking about our second stop - Mindo. Why? La gente. Mindo was a small enough place that the kids were able to engage with the community. One of them was sitting in the park one day when a small pair of hands covered her eyes. It was one of the girls from the playground. Familiar faces ducked out of shops and latched onto our kids' waists and necks. Religious processions passed us on the street as we ate dinner. We were welcome.

Our last night in Mindo, our kids peeled, roasted and ground cacao seed to make cocoa powder at a quaint shop called Chocolarte. This powder was mixed with water and heated to make a thin, rich fondue. We crowded around the gigantic bowl and dipped strawberries, bananas and fresh coconut into the sinful mix, family style.

mindo in mind

While in Mindo, a highlight was an afternoon of community service. While one group of students used machetes to clean up the town square, another group went to spruce up a playground. First we cleaned the grounds, which was full of liter and even the bones of dead animals. Then our students painted and repaired several swings. The kids on the playground slowly warmed to our kids. By the end, they were all covered in paint and helping our efforts. The day ended with piggy back ride races and giant hugs. Over at the town square a similarly beautiful story unfolded when citizens of Mindo saw our kids working and started coming out one by one with their machetes to help.

volcán chico

Lava fields


500 to 800-year-old cactus


Volcán Chico

In the shadows of Sierra Negra lies another active volcanic zone, known as Volcán Chico. Sulphur, iron, Pahoehoe lava and A'a lava cover the landscape. You can actually see small chunks of pure yellow sulphur mixed in with other volcanic rock. Lone cacti decorate the landscape. This one is between 500 and 800 years old.

sierra negra

Sierra Negra's 10-kilometer wide caldera





We hiked 10 miles to, from and around her caldera. She last erupted in 2005. You can find her on Isabela in the Galápagos.

angel paz

Angel Paz told Cariño to jump onto the trunk of a tree. Cariño jumped. Cariño? Cariño who? A bird.

We woke up at 4:30 a.m. to go with Angel to see the Cock-of-the-Rock. The bright red feathers of the birds flashed through the leaves of the dense canopy. Dozens of camera shutters opened and closed. The forest and its inhabitants provided the rest of the soundtrack. The cameras pointed through the trees, zoomed to maximum length, at the birds. I watched, then pointed my camera at Angel. Why is it that I love photographing people so much more than animals? I can't say. Lucky for me, I don't often get assigned to photograph birds for the newspaper.

As for the birds, I can still see them in my mind. You'll have to imagine them, but I can show you Angel. Bird whisperer.

machachi

Just passing through, from the bus window en route from Cotopaxi to Quito.

[My photos have gone from clean to chaotic. Just a reflection of my mood today. We'll be back to simple soon : ) ]

granadilla y ají

Two lovely discoveries from Ecuador - granadilla and ají. The fruit may look like caviar, but its taste is sweet and bursting with fruity flavor. Ají was everywhere, in bottles and bowls. I used ají like most Americans use ketchup. I never really liked ketchup, but ají? Now we're talking!

páramo by horseback

Páramo: A plant community of shrub heath, mosses, fern meadows and grasslands above tree line in the Andes of South America, according to Conservation International. We had the opportunity to explore the area on horseback for three hours. My horse had trouble galloping. Our guide Roberto told me it was because he had some El Paso Fino in him, which made it less of a natural movement for him. It's just as well, because no tuve prisa. I was in no hurry.

4810 meters

Cotopaxi


Looking down, a little more than halfway up


Looking straight up to the summit from the refuge

The hike was short but not easy. In the middle picture you can see white spots down the hill in the distance. These are the cars in the parking lot, where our trek began. We made it to Refugio Jose F. Ribas, all 26 of us. It looks so easy, until you start walking. The air is so thin, sometimes you must stop to breath. Everyone I saw coming down the volcano wore climbing boots and carried pick axes. We were a motley crew in tennis shoes, hoodies, alpaca hats and ponchos.

cotopaxi

One of the hardest parts of blogging about trips retrospectively is deciding where to start. I've decided to start with the part of the trip that was the most visually stimulating to me - Cotopaxi. Here we stayed at a lovely Hacienda called El Porvenir. To give you some sense of the trip, it went like this: Quito --> Mindo --> Cotopaxi --> Quito --> Isabela --> Santa Cruz --> San Cristóbal. --> Quito. Three of the stops were in the Galápagos Islands.

I did a fair amount of reading before the trip, but a majority of the research I did was on Las Encantadas and not the mainland. I was floored when we arrived at the hacienda. The bright white summit of Cotopaxi - the world's highest active volcano - peeked out behind the hills surrounding us. At night, the lights in Quito's valley twinkled. In the day, the sun's rays increased the intensity of the colors of man and land. The clouds touched the earth and piled on top of each other. The wind gave the land a constant voice.

it's all right now

Quito from the bus window

About three weeks ago I sat on a bench in the Miami International Airport Hotel lobby waiting for 23 students. Destination: Ecuador. Yesterday I stared at that same bench, where my journey began, from a chair a few meters away.

Memories fly through my mind, like the landscape out the window of a moving bus. Flying from MIA to STL our cruising altitude was a little more than twice that of Refugio José F. Ribas, a point we climbed to on the slopes of Cotopaxi. The flight time was equivalent to the time it takes to travel from Puerto Ayora to Puerto Villamil via speed boat in the Galápagos. My life has new standards of comparisons, new metaphors.

Traveling encourages personal growth, but on that bench in Miami I wasn't certain that traveling with 23 students and two other leaders would permit such growth. It did. In many ways, it was an experience multiplied by 25.

I want to speak better Spanish. I'm signing up for a class in the fall. I want to do more things I fear. Often when I do simple things in life that I fear, I gain the most enjoyment. I want to conserve more. (What's up with this new trend to wrap your luggage in tons of saran wrap? Does a pristine bag function any better than the one with a scuff?) I want to live abroad, algún día, for sure.

Disconnected from their social circles and daily life routines, our kids were forced to live in the moment. I learned to do the same. A quote in a book I read while traveling (Savages by Joe Kane - read it!) resonates:

No day and night here, mate. No asleep, no awake. No dreams, no reality. No past, no future. It's a continuum: Huaorani time. It's all right now.

As a journalist, I'm a post processor. I don't cry while I photograph funerals. I don't clap when I hear a message I like. I react days, weeks later. It's a professional necessity that has become a personal defense mechanism. Ecuador broke it down. The páramo's spirit caught me off guard. On horseback, I closed my eyes only when the wind blew up the dust so bad it hurt my eyes. With my eyes closed, the sound of the horses' hooves and the whipping of the wind kept the scenery alive in my mind. In Galápagos I jumped into the Pacific and within minutes a sea turtle swam to my left, a sea lion to my right. I could be no where but that moment. It's all right now.

As the plane broke through the clouds over Miami, I saw a speck of glowing orange. It looked more like the sun than the moon, but it was rising in the east at night. Moonrise. A stared at it for quite a while, until I was convinced that, yes, this was the moon. Then I sat back and sang along with the song coming through my earphones, "We live in a beautiful world..."