Gorgeous pictures from a gorgeous weekend!

So this entire week from October 22 to 26 has consisted basically of me doing little more than classwork, eating, napping, exercise, and salsa, so I don't have much to share by way of pictures. But I do have last week's beautiful images yet to share here! 

Saturday the 20th almost everybody else in GAIAS took a set of taxis out to Puerto Chino, which is apparently as beautiful as the gorgeous beach in Isabela. I had already organized a group to go there on a 3-stop excursion the next day so I went to La Lobería beach with Laleña and Keegan instead. It's a nice 25-ish minute walk from the center of town and... It. Is. Beautiful. 

We hiked out to the cliff along the beach and then came back to the beach and snorkeled with a bunch of fish, some turtles, and had a sea lion come and play tricks on us before heading back to town. And then I collapsed into a nap, went to dinner, and watched Rango in Spanish (with no subtitles... which is really hard, actually). 

One note: I took these with my camera instead of iPhone and there is a smudge/scratch on the lens. So that's great. 

Hermit crab we met on the trail! 

A glance back as we walked along the "trail" - basically lava rocks with some stakes marking what direction to climb. 

A swallow-tailed gull and blue-footed booby on the same ridge along the cliff =D 

Keegan and Laleña taking a picture of a fat lava lizard. 

Can you see the marine iguana trail from its dragging tail? 

La Lobería isn't quite aptly named, because there are much fewer lobos than on Playa Mann or Playa de Oro, the two beaches nearest to school. However, here are some. The baby that you can see in the water towards the front was playing around after we woke him up from a nap by accidentally being too noisy. 

There are many more marine iguanas than lobos. They were everywhere as we hiked the trail. 

First guy we saw when we got to the sea view portion of Lobería. 

Marine iguanauanauanauanauanauana. 

Lazy lobos snuggling as they nap in the sun. 

View of the trail before it becomes lava rocks. 

Sunday 10/21/12

The only thing that could ruin a 3-stop adventure to some of the top attractions of the island is unfortunate weather - overcastedness, excessive mist, windiness and cold, etc. 

So. It was great that today we were blessed with a perfect, clear blue sky and spot-on weather. It’s actually a little hard to find an online weather forecast for San Cristóbal, but a weather.com screen capture of the Galápagos gives a pretty good idea of the temperatures we experience here: 

We left this morning for a multidestination excursion day. Our stops: 

• El Junco, the only freshwater lake in all of the Galápagos. It is a water-filled collapsed volcano, similar to the likes of Quilotoa except it is significantly smaller, the water isn’t super alkaline, called a crater instead of a caldera since its sides are less steep, and hiking around the rim isn’t going to make me sore for a week.

The crater. Frigate birds come to the lake to wash off the salt from their feathers, since they don’t have an oil-secreting adaptation that makes them waterproof. They then shake their distinctive swallow-divided tailfeathers and fly back out to the coast. 

View from the rim, San Cristobal’s shores are visible from all around. We surely are on an island. 

Smiley Savannah for a size comparison! (especially because her picture is much better than mine at this same location) 

Bathing frigate birds! 

And right across the road is the wind “farm” of 3 turbines that provides ____% of the town’s electricity. There is flickering at the start of the windy season, but it seems pretty successful so far. 

1. Galapaguera, Galapagos tortoise breeding and happiness center. 

This guy was right next to the gate when we came in. He’s pretty far from the rest of the tortoises. The tortoises endemic to San Cristóbal are Geochelone chathamensis and live to be about 180 years old. Specimens of them were moved from other parts of the island to come to this refuge so they could be raised and bred away from the prying and destructive hands of islanders. 

We watched this one eat leaves and twigs for a while. 

For anyone’s who’s worried about their operations. 

Apparently we were there right around mealtime and these folks were just waiting around the water hole for some magic banana leaves to fall from the sky for them from the park rangers. I have a 2-minute video of some of them walking into the water hole, but it is too big to upload. 

This guy was directly next to the trail on our way to the nursery. 

The nursery is my favorite place ever. 

PILE OF BABY TORTOISES. 

TORTUGAS CHIQUITIIIIITAS! (Teeeeeeeny tortoises!) 

Me with BABY TORTOISES. 

Once the tortoises get big enough to be let out of the boxes of rocks, they live in the pen area and eat and make friends. The biggest one near the left side is Genesis, who was the first of her batch of babies in 2005. 

1. and Puerto Chino was our final stop. 

It is a beach. With beautiful clear aquamarine water and not very much to see if you try to snorkel. This is all I have for you.