The land of flamingos, penguins, and blue-footed boobies!

Two days ago, we returned from one of the most incredible places on earth - The Galápagos! We spent seven days there snorkeling, hiking up volcanos, swimming with sea lions, and seeing all sorts of interesting wildlife. Compared to the Amazon where we barely had a free minute to shower, this excursion was much more relaxing.
Our half of the group stayed on a boat for the first 4 days, and then on the island Isabela for the last 3 days. On the boat, we usually snorkeled two times daily in various locations, and then did a sort of caminata (short walk) in the afternoon. The boat traveled during the night, so every morning we woke up to a different island and scenery!

Eden, the boat we stayed on

View of Santa Cruz, the first island we visited

First day of class

 Our guide was incredibly knowledgeable and gave us a fantastic overview of the geology, natural history, and people of the Galápagos. One aspect that I really enjoy about excursions is that everything is in Spanish. Although we occasionally speak English amongst ourselves, nearly 100% of the information is taught to us in Spanish.

Red-footed boobies on the island Santa Cruz

Our guide Lenín showing us the skull of a dolphin

Snorkling!

Every day, we saw animals we had never seen before, including marine iguanas, giant tortoises, and flamingos.  But for me, the strangest part of the Galápagos is the lack of fear the animals have for humans. Because there have never been terrestrial predators, this instinct never developed in them. Even after seven days of observing, I couldn't get over how weird it was for a blue-footed boobie to walk within a foot of me or for a marine iguana to not move an inch as 13 people walked next to it.

A Nazca boobie on the island of Genovesa

You can get VERY close to sea lions

And swim with them

View from the top of Bartolome

 Flamingos!

We saw an incredible number of tortugas while in the Galápagos. Nearly every time we snorkeled, we saw between 3 and 20 of them. 

Swimming with the turtles

On the island Santa Cruz, we visited a giant tortoise reserve! There were 5,000 on the island, and in total, there are 50,000 on the Galápagos. 

During our time on Isabela, we had more free time to hang out on the beach, slackline, and spend time with our host families. My host dad's job is to dive for octopus, fish, and sea cucumbers, so we had fantastic seafood dinners!

Slacklining on the beach

It's hard to believe I get college credit for this :)

Anacondas, Tarantulas, and Bullet Ants, oh my!

The Amazon. Poison dart frogs, bullet ants, bushmasters, monkeys, night hikes, bird-watching, swimming in the Amazon, capybaras, frog-catching, tarantulas, pirana-fishing.

The eight days that we spent in the jungle were unlike any trip I’ve ever been on. Each day, I was amazed and awed by something new, whether it be learning about the caste system of army ants or seeing one of the most poisononous snakes on earth.

Our days could not have been busier – activites began at 5:30am and didn’t end until 10pm at night. Luckily we got one free hour after lunch to sleep or go swimming in the Tiputini River. Our schedules included a variety of activites such as night hikes, a few indoor lectures, time to work on our field projects, primate censusing, and more. The Tiputini Biological Reserve Station has a tower and a bridge that go up to the canopy level, and I particularly enjoyed being able to see the jungle from up high as the sun rose.

View from the top of the tower

 The tower

The bridge

Although we had one main guide who stayed with us throughout the week, the guides who work at the reserve instructed us as well. I was shocked to find out at the end of the week that most of them hadn’t received education beyond 6^th or 7^th grade, but they knew more about the jungle than I could imagine any Ph.D. knowing! For instance, in our bird species activity, we sat up in the tower for two and a half hours listening for different bird-calls. The guides would name the birds for us based on their calls so that we could make a series of 20-species list, and later be able to estimate the number of bird species on the reserve. The reserve has over 540 different species of birds! I was incredibly impressed that the guides could not only identify all of these birds, but also know their calls and behavior patterns. And this was just birds – they could do the same with frogs, plants, insects…

One of the guides showing us the species of ant that lives inside the branches of a tree. They taste like lemons!

One of my favorite activities that we did was a primate census. After a few lectures and hours of field experience identifying the 10 monkey species that live on the reserve, we all walked for 90 minutes along different trails, observing and identifying any groups of monkeys that we encountered.

The unplanned learning experiences in the jungle were just as good, if not better than the scheduled ones. On one afternoon, a friend and I went for a walk to the tower during our free hour, and in this time, ran into a colony of raiding army ants. The day before, we had heard an incredibly interesting lecture about army ants and the way their raids work, but seeing it all happen in real life added a completely new element to the information. 

Swarm of army ants

Other things we saw:

The fungus cordyceps: mind-controls its insect host and then kills it

Banana spider - very venomous

Tarantula

Poison dart frog

Queen leaf-cutter ant

Dwarf caiman

Termites fleeing from their nest

Pirana fishing!

A bushmaster

One of the two overly friendly monkeys in the town of Coca (on the way to Tiputini)