Galapagos Reflections from Quito

Our time in Galapagos post our boat trip may have actually been more impressionable. We got back on a Thursday afternoon, Friday our mini-project proposals were due and by Saturday we were out collecting data. For a change of pace and also because I am starting to doubt the prospect of myself as a serious, research oriented scientist, I joined Nora, Liz and Colleen in a sociology minded project. Over the course of 3 days we interviewed locals and tourists to try and gain insight into their perceptions of tourism as an effective means of supporting marine conservation.

Tourism in Galapagos has exploded in the past 15 years, and as islands this means there is a lot of potential for disaster. Details aside, basically what I learned is that tourists and locals both have views of tourism that are disconnected and somewhat out of step with reality. Locals know how much $ reaches the local economy, but tourists way overestimate it since many don´t realize that the boats they cruise around in are often foreign owned. Local identified problems on the island like increased pollution with increased tourism, but still didn´t seem to make the complete connection. Migration to the islands is pretty unregulated and also poses a threat to their conservation. Only time and the Ecuadorian governemtn will decide how Galapagss is saved, but I hope something is done sooner than later.

Anyway, what I really liked about this project was the interesting conversations it started, especially with my host mom on the islnad and an Italian couple that was staying at the hostal attached to our house. In fact my host mom and I had many good conversations with one another. I helped her with her lesson plans even. She teaches English but doesn´t have many resources for teaching vocabulary. So she came up with topics such as chemistry and had me write lists of words. I really enjoyed sitting around the kitchen table chatting with her and I hope she enjoyed my company as well.

The Italian couple has been traveling since November. They were tired and worn out but gave me a lot of good advice on traveling. They were hopign to catch a boat to wherever and work as deck hands in exchange for a ride. For two weeks they waited but had no luck and in the end decided to fly back to the mainland before flying out of Brazil in May. One of the boats they had hoped to ride on was captained by a young man from Indiana and his first mate from Rice Lake, Wisconsin. Small world! They were also accompained by a long bearded, skateboard loving, somewhat paranoid Finlander. He was a character, but when we interviewed him for our project he had a lot of insight and interesting remarks.

I was in San Cristobal for Easter Sunday and did in fact go to Easter mass with my host family. The church was small, only about 15 pews in all, but behind the alter was a beautiful mural with an ocean scene. There were giant tortoises, sting rays, sharks, cacti, blue and red footed boobies, dolphins, sea turtles, lava lizards and iguanas. It was beautiful! I understood most of the mass despite my shakey Spanish, so that was comforting. Communion was interesting, only about 6 people went up to recieve it and when my host parents didn´t I decided not to as well because I didn´t know if doing so would overstep a custom the Catholic Church in the states doesn´t have. Besides I broke 2 rules as it was, I ate breakfast right before mass and arrived 20 minutes late!

The last fews day we had in Galapagos were filled with paper writing, exam studying, exam taking, snorkeling, swimming and hanging out with our host families. I was sad to leave Dorys, Antonio and Genesis, but I don´t have much time to be sad. Tomorrow (April 15) I am going to Canoa, a town on the coast. I will be working at a farm just outside of Canoa for the next month. I am so excited!! If you don´t hear from me for awhile, dont´be alarmed, I´ll just be doing some farming!