THE GALAPAGOS ISLANDS

How I Followed in Darwin's footsteps --

Jared Ramsdell

References Cited: Early Explorers

As I sat in the airport terminal , I was wondering what this trip held for me.

I had been sitting there for two hours waiting for my plane to Mexico to arrive. It was six a.m .and I awoke to what I thought was my alarm. But it was my phone, I jumped out of bed grumbling to my self "Who the hell is calling this early?"

WINNING A RAFFLE

I picked up the phone on the third ring.

"Hello?!?" I said in a not so happy tone of voice. It turned out to be some guy from a raffle I entered months back. He said I won a trip to the Galapagos Islands.

I have to admit that did make me smile, because I never win anything. There was only one catch; I had to leave that day. They had already called all the appropriate people to get me out of trouble so it was all set. The loud annoying sound of the airport intercom broke me out of my flashback. My plane was now boarding; it was time to go.

VIRTUALLY A SMOOTH RIDE

The plane ride was a smooth one, no problems there. The same for the remainder of the trip to the ship waiting to take me to the island. We arrived in the small fishing village; we stayed the night there. The accommodations there were pretty impressive for such a small place.

They were little cottages; of course they were painted obnoxious pastel colors for some inane reason. That night we dined on steaks and local beer. The beer left a lot to be desired but it was cool and wet so I didn't complain.

After dinner I went to bed and slept like a rock. Nothing was going to wake me up until morning came. I had a rude awakening that morning; I woke up to the screaming laughter of local village children. It seems that some monkeys got into my cottage and were playing with my stuff. I was up in an instant shooing off the monkeys as well as the children. I walked down to the shore and had a swim in the most crystal clear, emerald colored water. Before I knew it, it was time to go! I was so excited!

Then two hour boat ride was a smooth one; we arrived at the island of Isabella, at Puerto Villamil. This is small fishing village. We were greeted warmly by a local villager. We couldn't hear a thing he was saying. He immediately notice our confusion and pointed to a box on the dock, there was a sign on the box that read "To hear the guide in you language of choice press, 1. For English, 2. For French, 3, For Spanish, 4, For German." I pressed the button for English for obvious reasons. From there he introduced himself as Juan our guide. He took us too the islands best (and only) hotel.

CHOOSE YOUR MUD SHACK

It was a mud shack. "This will really not do for me!" I thought. Again I noticed one of those boxes, this one read "Choose your hotel!" and it proceeded to list a long list of hotels. Seeing that the trip was already paid for I splurged and went for the Hilton. As I walked into the door of my mud hut, the inside was a suite at the Hilton. "Pretty snazzy" I muttered to myself. We then changed clothes and had lunch on the beach, there was a huge table set up. It was heaped with food, all sorts of delicacies. One was supposed to be tortoise burgers, but just looked like regular hamburger to me. After we ate wee boarded a smaller boat and went to Elizabeth Bay to see the turtles. It was great! We spent so many hours watching the green sea turtles. It was cool to see them glide through the water like birds then try to go on land and flop about. The sun soon started to set and we had to head back for the afternoon. When we got back there was again a huge feast set up for us, it was wonderful.

AT HOME WITH THE ANIMALS

I awoke to the wonderful call of the local mockingbirds. That was an awesome wake up. We ate a quick breakfast and got moving, today were our busiest day; we were going to hit all the points we could on the island today.

We started out o a little cove to watch the seals play, that was defiantly cool. But I had already seen it because these were the same seals that hang around San Francisco. It was still fun though. From there we went to another fishing village, I can't remember the name of it now.

ESCAPING THE PIRATES

This one was famous for the pirates that used to visit. Immediately back in the times of buccaneers. We didn't have to push any buttons this time! It was kind of scary at first, but for some reason the pirates didn't even see us! It was great, I realized then that it was just one big hologram.

WE got to tour the port as it was then, saw the old postal barrel that the British Navy used to gather info on the whereabouts of certain individuals. From there we went to the tallest volcano on the island to watch the sunset, it was awesome! The scene was so nice for the end of the trip. It was so relaxing to watch the sun drop into the ocean to the west of us.

A PROBLEM WHEN TRAVELING VIRTUALLY

And as the sun was just about to fall under the horizon, a deafening PING noise was heard and a sign appeared in front of us.

The sign read "ERROR server cannot be reached. Network may be down!" I just shook my head and mutter "Damn Unity College network!"


Copyright ©2000 Jared Ramsdell
All Rights Reserved
Citation Permitted Only With Credit
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