Journals from Abroad

Adjusting to life on the Galápagos can be a little difficult at first. Quito is a massive city with tons of things to do and places to see, while within a few days on San Cristóbal you will have seen everything you possibly can within walking distance of Puerto Baquerizo Moreno. To some people this might feel stifling or trapping, but I personally enjoyed the change of pace. Besides, we also had our classes to keep us busy.

Our first course in the Galápagos was Island Biogeography, focused on the mechanics of island formation and how an island’s location and geography affect the species that move to and evolve on it. The Galápagos, with its extensive list of endemic species (‘endemic’ meaning that it is only found in a single area, in this case the Galápagos), is a prime location for learning these concepts. Our knowledge was also augmented by extensive field studies. Our first major one was a 3-day trip to the nearby island of Santa Cruz.

Santa Cruz is the most populated island on the Galápagos, with 15,000 people, and as such, it is generally considered the ‘main’ island, at least for tourism operations. To get there from San Cristobal, you must take a 2-hour ‘water taxi’; while I personally never have much trouble with boats, the high speed and rough seas were an issue for more seasick-prone people.

Once on Santa Cruz, we spent the first day on the southern half of the island, visiting a tortoise sanctuary and a highland preserve to get a better understanding of the Galápagos’ famous giant tortoises, and how they serve an important role in the Galápagos’ terrestrial ecosystems.

The second day was focused more on the aquatic environment; we traveled to the northern end of the island and spent the day on a boat to North Seymour Island, a small island (less than 1 square mile in size!) just north of Santa Cruz. There, we took a snorkeling trip to see the local marine wildlife and took a small hike on North Seymour to observe the nests of various seabirds like the blue-footed booby and magnificent frigatebird.

The rest of the second day and the first half of the third day, we essentially had to ourselves to explore Santa Cruz’s main town of Puerto Ayora. It was a significantly larger town than Puerto Baquerizo Moreno, with more shops, restaurants, and hotels, but definitely felt more ‘touristy’ than San Cristóbal did.  However, having spent a couple weeks on San Cristóbal at this point, it was good to get a feel for a different island in the archipelago.  Plus, the tourist aspect gave us a good opportunity to buy souvenirs!

Kai

After seven weeks on the Ecuadorian mainland, it was finally time for us to transfer to the Galápagos, where we would spend the remaining ten weeks of the semester. USFQ’s Galápagos campus is located on the island of San Cristóbal, the second most populous island in the archipelago. To get there, we took a flight from Quito direct to San Cristóbal with a short stopover in Guayaquil to pick up some additional passengers.

Disembarking at San Cristóbal.

My first impressions of the Galápagos, upon arrival, reminded me in some ways of the arid parts of Hawai’i, where I grew up and still live; the mix of low, dry vegetation with rocky shores and sandy beaches was similar to parts of O’ahu in the dry summers. However, there were two major differences that were immediately apparent; first, the lack of mountains and second, the extent of human habitation.

San Cristobal is estimated to have a population of around 7,000 people, the vast majority of whom live in a single town, Puerto Baquerizo Moreno. While that might still sound like a lot of people, consider that McMinnville has a population of around 35,000. So Mac – which most people probably wouldn’t consider to be a very large town – has around five times as many people as the entirety of San Cristóbal!

Obviously, though, this is to be expected – after all, the Galápagos is famous not for any big towns and crowds but rather for its wildlife and natural environment. And indeed this was also evident; for instance, we encountered sea lions almost immediately after arriving, laying about on the beaches and even in the streets in parts of town close to the shore. While I’ve seen seals and sea lions in the wild before, the sheer number that were sprawled out on the beach was shocking.

The USFQ campus is located on the northern end of town, right in front of Playa Mann, the town’s main beach. Like in Quito, we all lived with local host families; this time, I lived with a family of four. The environment there was really different from my host experience in Quito, but it wasn’t a bad change. While we had the weekend to re-orient to life on the islands, when Monday came around, we went right back to work to take our first Galápagos classes.

Kai

After our week in the Amazon, our Tropical Ecology course shifted focus from the Amazon rain forest to the mountainous highlands that surrounded Quito. While this cold, grassy environment might not be the first thing you think of when you hear “tropical”, since they are in the tropics regardless, they can still be considered a tropical environment.

The highlands of the northern Andes are known as the páramo, and are classified by low shrubs and grasses, high winds, and fluctuating temperatures, much like many other mountainous environments around the world. Much like with the Amazon, our understanding of this environment was deepened by a long field study, although this one was only three days, quite a bit shorter than the almost week-long Amazon trip.

During this trip, we were based out of a mountain lodge on the slopes of Rumiñahui, a small mountain just north of the Cotopaxi volcano, arguably Ecuador’s most famous mountain. It was an older but very cozy place, and stayed nice and warm during the nights, when the temperatures would sometimes drop below freezing due to the altitude, dry climate, and high winds. Our fieldwork on-site consisted of soil sampling and observational work, using soil nutrient and chemical analysis devices to determine the quality and water-carrying capacity of the soil; the soils of the South American páramos also function as massive water reservoirs, meaning that they are extremely important to not only Ecuador’s natural ecosystems but its human residents as well. We also spent a lot of time hiking around the nearby mountains and identifying local plant and animal species so as to better understand these mountain ecosystems.

Overall, while the páramo trip might not sound quite as exciting as our week in the Amazon, I personally found it to be really interesting and enjoyable, with a lot of time to ourselves to explore this area of the Ecuadorian Andes on our own terms in addition to our class activities. However, our time in the mainland was coming to an end; soon, we would be transferring to the USFQ’s Galápagos campus, where we would be spending the rest of the semester.

While it was a shame to be leaving soon, the prospect of going to the Galápagos – the location this program is focused on, after all – was extremely exciting to all of us.

Kai

In the second week of our GIS class, Geographic Information Systems and Science, we had our first field study!  As someone who picked out my Environmental Studies degree because of my positive experiences with conducting field work, I was looking forward to getting out there and getting our hands dirty.

This first trip was to the Mindo cloud forest, a highland jungle area northwest of Quito. Because of the difficult mountain terrain around Quito, we had to take a roundabout way to the north to reach Mindo, but once we arrived we were blown away. Compared to Quito’s dry arid grasslands, the jungles of Mindo were a completely different world. We spent three days there in total, staying in the Bellavista Lodge, which was a super nice place with a really cool room layout where you used a central ladder to access the different floors with each floor being its own “room”.

We spent most of the time hiking and logging points on GPS units to upload and work with later on, but we also had plenty of time to explore the area on our own time.

One of the biggest things about Mindo was its great diversity of wildlife, so we kept our eyes peeled for various jungle animals and we were not disappointed. We spotted several mammals, including a couple tayras – omnivorous animals related to weasels and wolverines – and a kinkajou, which is a tree-climbing animal that kind of looks like a lemur at first glance but is actually closer related to raccoons.

The most common and diverse animals we saw, however, were easily the birds. There were a wide array of tropical birds including toucans, trogons, and lots of hummingbirds. The hummingbirds, especially, were so unafraid of humans that if you held a cup of sugar water, they would just land on your hand to drink it!

Some hummingbirds on my hand in Mindo.

My friends and I also would make our own trips to the surrounding areas outside of class. We took advantage of one three-day weekend to go down south and visit Baños, a famous tourist town located in a low river valley that led into the Amazon jungle.  As a result, like Mindo, it was a much more tropical environment than Quito’s highlands and had a variety of things for visitors to see and do.

One of the biggest surprises to us was how inexpensive everything was – while we had expected a big touristy destination like Baños to be expensive, it was actually very affordable – our lodging, for example, was a hostel that cost less than $10 per night which was surprising, considering how nice the premises were.

Overall, the start of this second month in Ecuador was filled with a lot of travel and adventure in a welcome change of scenery from the mountainous dry terrain of Quito. However, the real adventure is yet to come – the next course, focused on tropical ecology, will feature a week-long trip to the heart of the Amazon Rainforest.

Kai

After one week of Spanish classes, the “true” classes for our program in Ecuador began. While the Spanish classes had taken place the week before the official start of the semester, when we showed up to campus the next week it was completely packed! As someone in the ecology and evolution track, my first class was focused on Geographical Information Systems (GIS), a computer program that allows one to display and analyze data on maps for data visualization. It’s not an easy program to learn, but thankfully I had actually taken a GIS course at Linfield about 2 years prior so I was already familiar with the basics.

However, there’s more to a study abroad program than just going to class, and our group (there were 22 of us in total, across both my track and the other track, which was focused on marine ecology) made sure to make the most of our time in Quito outside of class and over the weekends.

One of the first highlights of the trip for me was a climb up Rucu Pichincha, a 4,700-meter (15,400-foot) peak located immediately west of Quito. We accessed the trailhead by a cable car and proceeded to hike towards the peak. Fifteen thousand feet of elevation is no joke.  Even though the trail itself was never particularly steep, the thin air wore us out quickly and 5 of the 8 people in our group ended up turning around before the peak. But the three of us who did make it up to the top were treated to a great view of not only Quito but also the mountains on the other side of Rucu Pichincha.

The view of Quito from partway up the trail with Cotopaxi in the background (left), and the view to the west from near the summit of Rucu Pichincha, at about 15,000 feet.

We also traveled a short distance to visit the town of Otavalo, located about 2 hours or so north of Quito. A vibrant center of the traditional lands of the indigenous Otavalo Kichwa people, Otavalo is famed for its Saturday market.  On busy days, the market can spread across a third of the city and is claimed to be the largest artisan market in South America. It certainly felt like it, as the stalls seemed to stretch on forever, no matter where you went.  People were selling various goods ranging from basic souvenirs to handicraft jewelry and clothing, to expensive artisan sculptures and art pieces. You’d be hard-pressed to not find anything you were looking for there.

The streets of Otavalo during the Saturday market, around the outskirts of the stalls (left) and in the central square (right).

Overall, I feel I am beginning to settle well into Ecuadorian life. The food is excellent, the people are nothing but kind and friendly, transport is cheap and easy to find, and the university is a vibrant campus with lots of student life. What more could you possibly ask for?

Kai