ASB Galapagos: Day One: "17:32"

My journey to the Galapagos Islands had very humble, awkward beginnings. It was 7pm on Friday February 27th, 2 hours before I left, when I actually began to clean my room and pack my bags. I had spent the entire day before then writing my application to Curry (which turned out to be time well spent. Read the previous post). Anyways, upon finishing packing, I hopped in my car and drove to pick up Jess and Tinbite, who I'd never met before, for our ride to Dulles. The ride is about 2 hours, and, again, we'd never met up until that day really, so we all got to witness small talk evolve into ice breaking, and ice breaking form into bonding pretty quickly.

We stayed that night at Jenny's house, about 20 minutes away from Dulles. Our flight was at 5am, so in order to make it there with suitable time we needed to leave the house by about two, meaning we were getting 2 and a half, maybe 3 hours of sleep at best. I crashed on the floor of their basement that night and wished the T.V. was turned down a little bit, but I was thankful for the sleep that I got.

We woke up in a rush and ran out into the cars. We hit our first snag upon arriving in Dulles when we learned that Jenny's passport was too recently created for the Ecuadoran government to allow her into the country. Dejected, she turned to us confidently and said she would get it fixed and see us in a few days, and so we hit the road.

Our first flight was relatively uneventful. I slept for the first 5 hours and woke up only when I picked up the scent of airline food. Copa Airlines, as it turns out, serves (relatively) amazing food. I'm talking hot pancakes and sausage with real coffee. For free! For free? For free! I got to know Haley over the course of breakfast. As it turns out she's Lindsay File's roommate, so we worked from that common ground and got to know eachother very quickly. I found out she was a nursing student and that she was an active Christian, and she found out that I can be annoyingly enthusiastic and curious at 8 in the morning.

Our plane landed in Panama City where we waited for a brief layover. I meandered around the airport soaking in the culture. I really like people watching in foreign countries because I can't understand what strangers are saying to each other, and I kind of think it should be that way always. I mean, it's not really my business, and it's way more fun to guess what, say, the stern mother is lecturing to her adorable toddler son about, or why the two men in suits are running through the crowd. Getting hungry, I stood in front of a chocolate store for a good five minutes trying to muster up the courage to use my Spanish to order a snickers. At the time I couldn't even do that, but that all changed very quickly.

On the flight to Quito I again slept quite a bit. I woke up with enough time, however, to really appreciate the incredible natural splendor of Ecuador. Quito is a vast city built right in the heart of the Andes. Every hill was unto itself a mountain, and every mountain a cloud-piercing credit to natural formations. There were roaring waterfalls and majestic bridges between mountain peaks. Every last bit of Earth was emerald green, and the colors of the city buildings were every color of the rainbow. It was truly breathtaking. It had a massive majestic landscape like Colorado, but every last inch was covered in the tropical splendor of Hawaii or Florida. Basically, my dream landscape.

Our plane landed safely and after powering through customs we finally met our ride. Among them was a very pregnant woman named Patricia who greeted us all with a kiss on the cheek and an enthusiastic smile. Next to her stood Hakan (pronounced HO-khan), Patricia's husband, who unto himself requires at least a paragraph...

Hakan upon first glance simply didn't seem to fit, as a lanky, pale, blond, athletic Swede in a country full of stout Andeans. He spoke English and Spanish with a thick accent, dipping all of his vowels like he was trying to scoop up all the good stuff at the bottom of a barrel of language, and he dressed in the means of a modest outdoorsman,: khaki shorts, simple t-shirts, and hiking boots. he had a tattoo of Pisces on the back of his leg because, as he put it he "is a fish", and another tattoo of a viking wolf-cross adorned his bicep. He had a gentle smile and, as I would come to find over the course of my travels with him, a strange perspective on a lot of life. He kind of reminded me of the aliens you see in some movies who disguise themselves as humans and on the exterior seem normal until you start talking with them. He was very curious and had very surreal, almost other-worldy observations on most of humanity. I'll expand on this later, obviously.

We all hopped into one large van and weaved through the traffic of Quito on our way to the home of our host family. At first glance I couldn't get over two things about Quito, the first being all of the colors every where, and the second how it seemed to have this boom-town feeling of rampant commercialism no matter where you went. At least 5 or 6 times I saw soem graffiti that really intrigued me. At multiple locations throughout the city a person, or persons, had spray painted the characters "17:32" in the manner of numbers on a digital clock, red, angular, and broken. I never learned what the significance of 17:32 was, and it seems I may never know as no one was able to explain it. there isn't even n explanation online. Could it mean something awful, something depressing or violent? More than likely, but it became a personal symbol of my experiences in Quito, which itself was a bit of a depressing mystery.

We arrived at the apartment of a lovely woman named Miriam, who spoke very little English but was seemingly thrilled to host us all for the night. She took us around her home and gave us a tour. I found out where my bed was and that if I flush toilet paper in South America it will kill the plumbing. I also learned Miriam has really comfortable beds. I napped for about an hour, grabbed an extremely cold shower, being unable to master the controls, and waltzed into the living room. Our plan was to travel to the indigenous market across town with Hakan as our guide. We grabbed enough money to get by, gave our best to Miriam, and stepped out into the street.

Item one was to find an internet cafe to check emails and make sure our parents knew we were okay. It was here that I first learned two fascinating aspects of Quito's economy. First, everything is ridiculously cheap. I got 15 mintues of internet usage for 25 cents, and a cup of great coffee was about 50 cents. Second, Ecuador, as it turns out, doesn't mint its own paper money. Instead, US dollars have become the de facto currency. They have their own coins, some of which I kept, but no currency exchanges were ever necessary.

While waiting for everyone else to finish using the computer I noticed these two adorable little Ecuadoran girls in the internet cafe with their mom. Catching th attention of one, I started making faces. She was instantly fascinated and had her sister watch me too. The moment was brief but adorable. It helped me begin to realize that the language barrier is all mental. I made a connection with those two kids without saying a word, and we all had a blast.

Continuing our walk to the indigenous market, I began planning what I was going to purchase. As it turns out I left my really sweet Andean hoodie my folks gave me last Christmas n our plane into Quito, so item one was to purchase a new hoodie for those freezing Galapagos nights. We finally found our way to the market, a city of tents and an endless stretch of merchants selling their wears. With Hakan as my side-kick and translator, I quested for the perfect hoodie using what broken Spanish I had. Word of advice: Always act unimpressed. The second you look like you're into something those guys will sink your claws into you. Case in point with one woman who got seemingly emotional cause I wasn't interested in this bright red hoodie with a great big bright red sunflower that was far too small for me. At every shop I got a little better at haggling, and at every shop I felt I was getting closer, but the work was strenuous.

I stopped by a food vendor for some Ecuadoran snacks, the first a ball of coconut shavings dipped in chocolate. Delicious, but despite curiosity I decided to not pursue the source of the hair I found deep in its core. The next snack was less hairy, but in no way less epic. The locals call it "guayava", in English "guava" but in reality a block of dense, deep-red jam roughly the size of a brick. You know when you were a kids and you squished up your fruit roll-up into a dense little ball? Take that, and multiply the volume by about 20 and add seeds for flavor. Now eat it all up.

Delicious.

Satisfied with my snacking, and the sun going down, I gave the hoodie search one last try and to my luck finally found the perfect one. It was a great big wool hoodie with bright colors of evry color of the rainbow, and it was beautiful. I talked the merchant down to 11 bucks and wore it on my merry way back to Miriam's.

On the way back we were stopped at least twice by little children desperately trying to sell us candy. Hakan explained that it is not uncommon for parents to kick their kids out and tell them to not return until they sell all of their candy, or, in some extreme cases, sell their kids to others to use for similar practices. It was immensely depressing to not give these kids money, but it didn't feel ultimately right to feed that hideous social beast. I pray for those children because I can't imagine the life they live, and I secretly wish I'd given them everything I'd brought with me across the border in hopes they would have a better life. But this is too similar a scene in Quito. Many seem to struggle in the depths of poverty, and many try to find their way out by desperately trying to sell SOMETHING. It's an economy of desperation, and you can see it in many locals eyes. But, nonetheless, it is a beautiful town with beautiful people. many of them just need lots and lots of help.

Miriam treated us to an excellent plate of spaghetti and that night we broke the ice with some would-you-rathers. We speculated on things that are probably best unwritten here, but the bonding was solid.

That night I checked in early and slept like a baby. Day 2 coming soon!