Hotel Fernandina Puerto Ayora

... classroom was in a huge empty government built building with an echo that made it hard to understand people, especially bad environment for language learning. Lesson planning was really hard at first and teaching adults that are all older than me was a hard dynamic to get used to. It's perfectly normal to enforce authority over children a classroom, but how to do that for adults was really hard for me. Now that they know me, it's much easier.<br>

... where A tried an apparent local speciality- Sanduiche Amazona. That, of course, is a triple decker sandwich made with fried white bread, bacon, fried eggs and fried beef. With chips. Excellent stuff, and just like they eat deep in the Amazon rainforest we're sure.<br><br>Go up at 6am for breakfast and to meet rest of the Galapagos tour group- for the next 5 days we are part of a tour and PEOPLE SORT STUFF OUT FOR US! It's amazing, even at this early hour, we just give a man ...

... 8217;s face light up as he saw the sharks. I got Jody to duck dive trying to line up a picture of him with the sharks in the background. I am glad they had already eaten.<br><br>We swam in this area for about an hour, again saw plenty of fish that I cannot name, and a couple of rays, one was a golden ray and the other a stingray. We also played for a short time with a couple of sea lions. After about 30minutes we enticed Niamh into the water. She didn&#8217;t ...

... soccer with other kids and Niamh was in the playground. When Christie returned from her jog we went along the harbor front still discussing our options, we stopped at a café where there was an apartment on offer for rent for $250 per month. We decided we would go and have a look, but were told we couldn&#8217;t do until later.<br><br>Around 12-40 Jody and Naimh had finished school for the day, they seem to have had some fun. We were ...

... the coast of Isabella as it gradually slipped out of sight, trying to keep comfortable as the boat crashed onto the wave upon wave.<br><br>It was a relief to get off the boat at Puerto Ayora. We were rewarded on our return by the pleasant smell of homemade soup that our landlady Rosa had left for us. <br><br>We spoiled ourselves with the soup and made ready for our early start tomorrow, we had to be up at 4-30am to catch a bus for 5am across the island to our waiting boat to Bartolome.

... can see how this could become monotonous after 5 days.<br><br>I´m not going to give too many details for this story, i´ll let the photos speak for themselves... however a couple of highlights would be:<br><br>* Definitely the animals: they have no sense of fear of humans at all. They are so tame you can get right up close to them and they don´t even bat an eyelid - even the ones with babies. Very unique...<br><br ...

... notice them throughout the day and realize that they are the things that make this place feel so comfortable and unchanged. And yet, I´m in a completely different place in my life, two years older, several more countries visited, a college graduate (yikes! thats still sinking in, especially as i realize that at this very moment, freshmen are moving in to UNC and going to FallFest soon. feels like yesterday, and yet like a lifetime ago at the same time). <br><br><br><br><br><br>

... as we got higher, and when we initially arrived to the rim everything was shrouded in mist so that you would never have known there was a volcano nearby. Our naturalist Oswalda predicted that the mist would burn off by 11am, and as we hiked around the rim we watched the ground seem to move as the mist cleared. Suddenly before us was a huge crater, black, lava-filled with trenches ...

... you, negotiation is very acceptable in Galapagos (like all of South America). I need to go to Galapagos to get additional education, they worked me! We walked the streets of Puerto Ayora (main town of Galapagos and only town in Santa Cruz) upon arrival and found a great 85 foot sailboat dive boat called the Sea Cloud and the Nautilus that we booked our dives with. The Sea Cloud-Nautilus was very nice. We finished the day with ...

... 50 feet this clear day, as our boat captain put us in the water with a family of 12 or so sea lions. At first they were a little suspect of us being there, but a few minutes in they were swimming laps under legs and kissing our goggles. It was pretty perfect. Our next spot was a little lagoon in another part of the island. There the captain gave us our gear and just said "Tiburon's". Reluctantly peering into the water, we see dozens of white-tipped sharks bottom feeding at ...