Galapagos!!!

Ok, so I have been super busy and haven't had the time to blog, so just ridiculously quick recap from when I last left off - The second trip down to the coast was amazing, we got to spend a wonderful few days in Puerto Lopez, doing intertidal surveys and getting some diving in (though when we went out, if was pretty hectic, there was a ridiculous surge that basically tossed us all around like rag dolls, and then we had about 2 metres visibility, so definitely one of my more challenging dives haha!)

We returned to Quito/Cumbaya on the Wednesday morning, after driving through the night, and then had a few more days during which we finished a subject, packed up our lives on the mainland and had to say goodbye to our host families of 4 weeks. All of this, to head to...

THE GALAPAGOS!!!!

Sunday morning, we had to be at the university front gate at 4:30 in the morning. We were shipped off to the airport in a bus, and quickly put through all the security checks etc, grabbed out tickets and were suddenly on a plane to the Galapagos. It was all a bit of a blur for me, to be honest, as I was so tired, and slept most of the way.

Arriving here was amazing, we were taken to our university building, which quite literally is situated right across from a beach, which is also home to a small sea lion colony!!

We had a town introduction, as well as our GAIAS orientation, had a lovely lunch and then were picked up by our host families. Erin and I got to be put into a house together, and I am very excited to be roommates with her, she is pretty awesome! We get along very well, both two crazy marine biology students :P our host father, Antonio, drove us to his house, which is not far at all from the university, which will give us lovely walks to and from each day. We met our host mother, Denise, who is really sweet, and of course, they speak very little English, so this will really help to improve my Spanish (so long as I stop cheating in French).

Denise and Antonio showed us to our rooms and also provided us with an unexpected blessing - we have internet in our host home. We had fully prepared to not have much internet access except when at the university, which is not an issue at all - I had internet once a week during Tanzania, and really much preferred it, as I wasn't glued to a computer all the time. However, as this is university, internet is substantially useful when it comes to researching for presentations and for papers, so we were amazingly blessed to have access to wireless internet.

This entire last week, we have been at class, which has been amazing. Our professor is a marine mammal expert and so this class has more of a marine mammal focus, which is perfect for me!!! Our class has consisted of lectures, as well as time out in the field - it is wonderful that packing for a day at uni involves making sure all my snorkel gear is with me and that I have my togs on :) two times we have gone snorkeling after class, as part of our class, which has been wonderful!!

We have also been instructed to design a research project which we will carry out over the next 2 weeks, which I am exceptionally excited about!! I have partnered with Erin and we are looking at the feeding behaviour of sea turtles off two beaches, so we'll be snorkeling a lot!! And then we write a paper and give a presentation. I am so excited for it!!

Friday saw a slightly more interesting turn - a lot (and I mean a lot) of students from the program got very ill. our professor even got ill over the weekend!! We all had this very intense stomach bug, which could have been a number of things, from food poisoning to simply adjusting to the new food and bacteria in the area. Whatever it was, thankfully we are all ok, and I am feeling so much better. But Friday was pretty rough, and I spent most of Friday and Saturday being quite comatose and living in between my bed and the bathroom. It was rather reminiscent of Tanzania to be honest :P

So that's a quick update from me, I will try to upload some photos a bit later on another post, but for the moment, this is what has been happening in my life!!!

I shall try to update again soon!!

Cheers and God bless to all!!!