El Dia Final

"Here, the strong cry and the weak die."

They said that the wall was meant to enclose the prisoners, but the truth is that it was intended to kill them. A two mile walk towards the heart of Isabela has brought us to "The Wall of Tears."  In 1947, 300 Ecuadorian criminals were shipped 600 miles off of the mainland to Isabela Island. For those who think that the Galapagos are an ideal vacation destination, it certainly wasn't for the prisoners that were sentenced to a punishment that was likely worse than any crime...they died building a pointless wall that would stand there eerily for decades to come so that tourists could feel cold shivers run down their backs at the sight of it.

But luckily, I am a modern tourist, and here on this last day, I have for you a list of all the things about Galapagos that were absolutely brilliant...and then some things that weren't quite so perfect, but added to what has been a fantastic conclusion to a most fantastic month abroad.

Charles Darwin Research Center

Surfing

Dinners with my incredible peers and professors

Homework on the beach

The most adorable puppy I have seen in my life

Patacones

Dancing under the stars

Flirting with Ecuadorian guys

A two hour boat ride of sea sickness...at 6:00 in the morning

Teaching the locals about solar energy

Organic oranges and bananas

The beach of love (or iguana love, at least)

A fantastic guide named Julio

A steaming volcano crater

Mid morning banana splits

Lots of sore-blistered feet

Talking of the things we miss about American food

Amazing lunches for $4

Happy hours

Turtle breeding center

Spontaneous singing sessions

Lack of wifi

Sand...everywhere

Sunburns despite sunscreen

Oodles of our own unique memorable quotes/facial expressions/idiosyncrasies 

Pictures. So. Many. Pictures. So. Many...and I am quite grateful for this

Last minute touristy shopping

Snorkeling with sharks and turtles

Face to face encounters with sea lions

Swimming with the penguins

Watching late night soccer games

Going for night runs

Paradoxes: cacti and mangroves, flamingos and penguins, creationists living in the homeland of evolution

Calling for Darwin's finches

Getting taken advantage of as tourists

Scrambling to catch up on journaling

Walking with the iguanas

Marveling at the diving blue footed boobies

Avoiding poison apples and collecting Jesus flowers

Long island ice teas, piña coladas, cognac, pilsner 

A fruit fight with little kids

Eating tres leches cake in such an amusing manner that the locals bursted out laughing

Making plans for when we can all see each other again...

I will miss Ecuador, these beautiful people I am traveling with, and learning new things by the minute. And while I am already excited to travel again, I have a clear concept of how lucky I am to belong in Seattle...if I hadn't known that I had a solid place to go back to, I never would have been able to let myself go and break down new boundaries the way that I did. They say that traveling helps you figure out more about yourself, and I don't want to be any more cliché than necessary, but I think that I instead learned that there is only going to be more about myself that I will never know.  Meeting new people requires changing little pieces of who you are in order to enable a connection, but each time I surprise myself with how I have changed, the happier that I am to know that I can trust in the solidarity of the notion that so much in life is transient.

Okay, I hope you understood all that...I think I broke my English in the process of improving my Spanish. It has been fun writing out my experiences, but it is time to stop stalling while finishing this last post so that I can look out the windows of this bus and watch Ecuador, as well as the rest of the time I have here, whiz off into my memory. If I could, I would say goodbye the Ecuadorian way, thanking all of you readers with an air kiss, but all I have for you are words. So ciao, hasta luego, I'll see you the next time around.