Saturday, April 26, 2008

Wow...

What a week! So even though I thought, after my coastal village homestay, that there was no such thing as "off the grid" anymore, this past week has proved me wrong, since Jatun Sacha is almost as off the grid as you can get. I arrived last Sunday and my Quito-accustomed senses were shocked as a stepped into the hot, humid air of the Galapagos. I walked with the hoards of tourists towards the airport, but was very proud and pleased to be able to avoid the lengthy "International Tourists" line and go to the "National Tourists" queue, where there was no one else waiting. I had gotten my censo (Ecuadorean ID card) and thus was able to qualify as a national tourist AND I would only have to pay a $25 park entrance fee as opposed to $100...At least, that´s what I THOUGHT. I got stopped at the door because, seeing a gringa walking towards the National Tourists line, the guards assumed I just couldn´t read or something. But I proudly showed them my censo and was allowed past. BUT, when I got up to the lady behind the desk and presented my censo and other documents, she looked at it and at me and then asked for my passport. I told her I did not have it, only a copy of it, since I was told by my teachers that that I was all I needed. She took my copy of my passport, looked at it, and then directed me over to the International Tourists side, saying I still had to pay $100. I almost completely involuntarily cried, "Bullshit!" but managed to hold it and my frustrations in. I at least was not made to wait through the entire HUGE International Tourists line, but they did unapologetically take my $100 from me and send me on my way, while I glowered silently to myself.

I eventually collected all my bags and made my way to the throngs of people waiting out front of the airport, most of them guides waiting for tourists. I almost had a moment of panic as I stood there amongst them--someone was supposed to be meeting me from Jatun Sacha, but where the hell were they? What if they never came? How would I find the station?

Thank God, out of nowhere, a woman tapped me on the shoulder and asked me if I was there for Jatun Sacha. She was Lydia, a woman who works at Jatun Sacha, and she was waiting there with another woman who works in the kitchen at the station. She said she knew I must be a volunteer because of the requisite giant, ugly rubber work boots I had slung over my shoulder. However she recognized me, I was just glad she had found me!

We waited in the oppressive heat a while longer for three other new volunteers who were supposedly arriving, but then finally we decided that the woman from the kitchen and I would go on to the station in a taxi (aka. a big, white pickup truck) while Lydia waited for the others. We rolled along in the taxi on a paved road only for about fifteen minutes before veering off on a narrow, dirt road that wound through jungle. On this extremely rough road, we rumbled along for the better part of an hour and, the further and further we went, the more it dawned on me that my hopes for occasionally going to an Internet cafe in town during the week or making phone calls were completely ridiculous.

FINALLY, we arrived at Jatun Sacha. Besides the sign out front, you would not know it--it is just a collection of humble buildings built from bamboo in the middle of the jungle on a hillside. A girl named Mimi, who also works in the kitchen, met us and showed me to the "Old House," where I would be staying. After she had shown me my room, she left me to myself while she started dinner. No one else was there yet, because apparently all the volunteers go into port for the weekends and were not back yet. So I stood there, completely alone, POURING sweat, in my dark little bamboo room, staring at the GIANT spiders hanging from nearly EVERY wall and smacking at the little biting flies that were partaking in a little fresh blood, courtesy of me, and, for a moment, I could only think: What the hell have I gotten myself into? Three weeks of this!!! Three weeks of oppressive heat like this, hard labor, bugs at every turn, and completely isolation from the greater world! "Holy shit..."

Luckily, Lydia arrived somewhat soon afterward with the three other volunteers, who were also in the Old House with me. They turned out to all be from Germany--Gabriela, Anne, and Ricarda. Ricarda was closest to my age and probably spoke the best English (they had only had a month of Spanish instruction before arriving and, besides that, their accents can sometimes make it hard to understand), so we talked for a while and have been getting along pretty well. Ricarda was also a bit more appalled and disconcerted by the heat and bugs than I was, so it made me feel better that there was someone else who kind of felt the way I did.

Just before dinner that evening, the other volunteer arrived. There was: LJ from CA, USA; Claire, Fran, and Croz from the UK; Connall, Sonya, and Paul from Canada; and Vanessa and Mike from Germany, as well. They gave us some pointers and advice to help us get accustomed to things there and how things work, which was nice. It was also just comforting (and helped relieve my slight sense of panic) to be with other people who seemed so self-assured and who had been doing it so long.

And thus, Monday morning, began what was a LONG and exhausting and CHALLENGING week. Each day, we had about six hours of hard labor, working on Jatun Sacha´s various projects. In the course of the week, I dug holes to plant coffee plants, clear cut invasive species away from the road with a machete, did some weeding and tending to the plants in the nursery, raking, and more macheteing! There is only SPOTTY cell phone reception and getting any reception at all requires people to hang their phones from wires along the roof and then lean out and twist and turn them into odd angles to get a signal. My phone, of course, gets no service on the islands at all, so I have to borrow other people´s phones and then spend a half hour attempting to get a signal just to send a quick message to my teachers twice a week to check in.

One of the highlights of the week was a CHANCHO (pig) hunt, which was awesome! After we had finished work for the day, Cesar, the director, asked us if anyone wanted to go with them to hunt chanchos. They are an introduced species and have been eating the eggs of the native birds, which is bad, and plus, they are good to eat! So, me and Claire looked at each other and I immediately was like, "I wanna hunt a chancho!" I convinced Claire to come with me, because I did not want to be the only girl running through the jungle after guys with machetes, begging her, " Come on! If nothing else, it´ll be an amazing story! When else will you be able to have this opportunity!" So, she came with us!

The chancho hunt entailed hiking up incredibly steep hillsides for about an hour, following dogs and guys with machetes, and then, FINALLY, upon spotting some chanchos on a nearby hillside, running like crazy down our hill and back up another one after the chanchos. Unfortunately, we did not catch the chanchos, but it was an adventure, for sure. It also really hit home for me how much invasive species are a problem here...and how hopeless it may be...when we were standing on top of those hills, looking out over all the neighboring hillsides: there was mora EVERYWHERE! Mora is one of the worst invasive species (it is basically blackberries) because it does not allow anything else to grow where it grows and it easily spread because birds eat the berries and spread it. And wow: I looked out over the hills and saw, in some places, it was completely white, twisting thorns and vines where the mora was and NOTHING else. It was everywhere! Lydia told me it covers 70% of the islands and that one day, it will probably be everywhere, and that it is basically impossible to stop. Sad. And it all began with one lady bringing a single mora plant to add to her garden here. Now, it is everywhere and it is irreversible.

Though the labor has been hard this week, the people have made it worth it. Meeting so many interesting and amazing people from all over is incredible. Definitely makes for some awesome story and character ideas for my creative writing project! One thing that was sad this week was that Paul and Croz left the project Thursday. They were two really interesting guys, who each basically got fed up with society and with their jobs, so they quit, sold their houses and everything they owned, and have now just been traveling and volunteering. Paul worked saving leatherback turtles in Costa Rica before this project and now he is moving on to do a three-month trek in Patagonia (I asked him how the hell he found out how to do awesome shit like that, to which he replied, "Google. The world is your oyster."). Croz worked in Costa Rica before this, too, and he is not sure where he is going next. It´s funny--I probably never would have met them except for being here and now that they are gone, I will probably never see them again (they are not the type for keeping in touch). It´s funny to think of the people that enter your life for just a brief time only to leave again, but who you will never forget. It was cool to know them while I did, and I know that, occasionally, I will think of them and wonder, "Where did they end up? What are they doing now? Did they ever find what they were looking for?"

While Paul and Croz left this week, new people arrive all the time. Richard from the UK and Eric from France just arrived on Thursday. Fridays we do not work, but instead go on nature hikes. Due to excessive rain the night before, we could not do the hike Friday and instead, Richard, Eric, Ricarda, Gabriela, Anne, Lydia, Cesar, and I piled into a taxi and drove to the Galapaguera Semi-Natural. This is where people get to see the giant tortoises. It took an hour to get there, then we walked around the place and saw the nursery with the baby tortoises, and then the big ones along the trail, who just sat there, nonchalantly chewing on leaves and staring at us. The biggest ones were pretty freaking incredible and reminded me of a tank or something. And yes, I got some good pictures, which I will post eventually...MAYBE next weekend.

After seeing the tortoises, we hiked down to a nearby beach (gorgeous white sand, clear blue water, volcanic rocks with blue-footed boobies on them) to eat sandwiches for lunch and enjoy the beach. And a bit later, we hiked back up and got back in our taxi to go back. NOW is where it got exciting.

Because there were eight of us, eight people cannot fit into the cab of a pickup truck, so Richard, Eric, Ricarda, and I sat in the back (the other two Germans were not too enthusiastic about the prospect, so we volunteered). However, about five minutes after getting in, it literally started to POUR. And it continued to pour the ENTIRE ride back. And as if that were not enough, we got stuck on the muddy dirt track that leads to Jatun Sacha, so Eric, Richard, and Cesar had to get out and push. We somehow managed to get past it and Richard, Eric, and Cesar jumped in the back of the truck as the driver gunned it up the rest of the rough, muddy track, trying to avoid getting stuck again. I just remember looking around at all of us--covered in mud, soaking wet, and all laughing our asses off. Eric yelled, "Well, this is adventure, isn´t it?" Adventure, indeed.

By some miracle, we were able to get our things from the station and make it out to the paved road and into port for the weekend, where the rest of the volunteers waited for us. Today, I plan to spend on the beach, where there are apparently tons of sea lions and blue-footed boobies and mantas, and tomorrow Ricarda and I are going snorkeling off of a boat that some of the other volunteers are going scuba diving off of, as well.

So, until next weekend, ciao!

-Alex

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