Flattop, Peak 2, Peak 3, and Flaketop Hike

Posted on March 25, 2025March 25, 2025 by Lark

When I signed on to visit Olivia in Alaska, she asked what I wanted to do while I was there. I was up for anything, but I definitely wanted to do some hiking. I love to hike, and Olivia and I are well-matched hiking buddies (the same amount of crazy but also appropriately cautious). We didn’t travel too far from Anchorage, but there are plenty of awesome hikes in and around the city. In fact, Chugach State Park, which supposedly has over 280 miles of maintained hiking trails (you’ll soon see why I say “supposedly”), is mostly located within the municipal limits of Anchorage (a fact that Olivia repeated anytime I said something about hiking near Anchorage. “Actually,” she would say, “did you know that much of it is IN the city of Anchorage?” Thank you for the fact check, Olivia. I will continue to say that it’s near Anchorage).

Prepare yourself for LOTS of pictures. And these are the ones that I was left with after really doing my best not to overdo it on photos…

Looking back towards Anchorage on our way up to Flattop.

Chugach is enormous (~495,000 acres), so we didn’t explore even a tiny fraction of the park. We stuck to the area most accessible from the city which is basically made up of a few different mountain ridges. We had a couple of hiking days where we followed a ridge, hitting as many peaks as possible along the way. The plan for our first day was to hike around 9 miles and visit four peaks. The first, Flattop, is the most climbed mountain in Alaska. Olivia said she’s been there a million times. From there, though, we kept going which was a first for her. Based on how few people we saw after leaving Flattop, I’d say most people are content to turn around after visiting just that one.

I took this exact same picture about 500 times.

I’m only going to make you look at two of them, though. For now.

Here’s a good view of our mountain ridge for the day!

The next two peaks are creatively named “Peak 2” and “Peak 3”, and the last one is Flaketop. To travel between peaks, the trail runs along the ridge. Since this is a less-traveled path, staying on track was a little iffy. Sometimes, the trail was super easy to follow. For example: walking through a grass-covered area and sticking to the non-grass-covered line. Other times, it was less so. For example: walking through a rocky area and trying to determine if this patch of exposed dirt seems like the trail… or is it maybe that patch of exposed dirt over there? I wouldn’t have been opposed to the use of some trail markers. I’m just saying, a couple of paint blazes wouldn’t hurt anyone.

We may not have had a clear path, but we did have awesome views to both sides. Views to the right…

Also, this may come as a surprise, but Peak 2 and Peak 3? Not the most defined peaks I’ve ever encountered. We did some, “Do you think this is the peak?” “No, my GPS is showing it somewhere over here… do you think this is it?” I think we probably found them. Let’s just go with yes.

There were also some very fast-moving clouds.

Compare this to that last picture! It was crazy how quickly the conditions changed.

And for good measure, let’s put another of these photos in.

Possibly taken from Peak 3? (I feel pretty sure that we made it there.)

Ambiguous peaks/trail aside, we did okay getting from Flattop to Flaketop. We certainly didn’t take the most efficient route, but we mostly managed to stay near the trail. There was a lot of map checking and course correcting. This was possible because while the trail wasn’t necessarily CLEAR, it did exist, so if you started walking in the right direction, at some point you’d think, “Ah, yes! Here’s the trail!” and start to follow that. (Was it actually the trail? Who knows. But at least there was something trail-like enough to convince you that you might be in the right place.)

Spot one of the approximately 3 people we saw on our hike post-Flattop.

There were some pretty spectacular colors along the way.

Happy to be walking on the trail (maybe).

Flaketop is the craggy peak to the right in this photo (not the tallest one).

After Flaketop (a much more commanding peak than Peaks 2 & 3), things started going downhill. As in, we began descending, and also as in, the trail quality took a dive. There was just… nothing. We’d follow a maybe-trail until we found ourselves at the top of a sheer drop off saying, “Hm. This is probably not right.” We’d check the map and see that we were WAY off course. Then, we would “find the trail”, but that just meant that our little GPS dots looked like they were in the right place. Sometimes, we would insist that we really did see a trail. “Oh yes! This is totally it!” one of us would say, as the other person nodded with great enthusiasm but weak conviction. Then, one step later, the hint of a trail would be gone again. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

At least if we were going to be lost forever, it was in a pretty place.

According to our maps, we were headed for a junction with Ptarmigan Pass Trail, our route for the next leg of the hike. As we struggled down the mountainside, we staked our hope on that transition. “That one is probably more popular, right?” “It can’t be worse than this, right?” “Don’t let me down, Ptarmigan!” I’m sure you can guess where this is going.

We overshot the imaginary junction. How could we not? We were on an imaginary trail, headed for another imaginary trail. I started yelling about how it should be called Pterodactyl Trail because it was extinct. This felt funny at the time, if that tells you anything about how we were doing mentally.

Olivia and I kept checking our maps. “The trail should be just over here.” “Mine shows it right over here.” I kept thinking that our GPS must just be a little off. It’s never perfect, plus we had no cell service which doesn’t help. Eventually, though, we determined that there was no trail. I wish I could say that we gave up on trying to follow it, but we didn’t. After all, the trail could magically appear at any second! Right? (Spoiler: wrong.)

The more we walked, the loopier we got. My terrible pterodactyl joke apparently wasn’t enough for me, so I kept going, asking Olivia if she was on the trail yet or pointing literally anywhere and saying, “I think that’s the trail there!” or, seeing that my GPS dot was in the “right” place, “Look! Can’t you tell that I’m on the trail?” Olivia was actually laughing at all of the jokes, so again, you can make your own call about how we were doing.

I look like I’m falling apart, and there’s a good reason for that.

Where’s the trail? Are you on the trail, Olivia?

The only positive I can come up with is that this “trail” was carpeted with little ground-cover-type plants that made the descent really nice on the knees. The negative is that you’re generally discouraged from going off trail to keep from killing things like little ground-cover plants… but we didn’t have much of a choice. We figured that no one was ever going to replicate our steps, so the plants would probably be fine.

There was a small part of me that felt like we were never going to get down to the bottom. Then, out of nowhere, this beautiful, bold trail came snaking up towards us. I was indignant, “HECK NO. There is NO WAY the whole trail was like this, and we just couldn’t find it.” No. It’s impossible. We zigzagged over every part of that mountain. There was nowhere left for it to hide.

Afterwards, it was almost comical to look at the map of our route. When you look at it from afar, it looks fine…

For reference, here’s the overall map of our route.

But if you zoom in, you can see the chaos.

At the top right, you can see the “junction” between the two trails. And then you can see how we absolutely didn’t even almost follow the “trail” (that skinny little yellow/orange line) down (we’re the thick orange line that looks like total nonsense).

The hike ended on a good note. The last trail was glorious – wide and flat, and we couldn’t have gotten lost if we tried. Shout out to Rabbit Lake Trail. You’re my hero. We zoomed back to the car, cranking out the last 2 miles like they were nothing.

Alaska State Fair & Giant Cabbages

Posted on March 18, 2025March 17, 2025 by Lark

On my first day in Alaska, Olivia and I participated in a quintessentially American experience – the state fair. The Alaska State Fair takes place at the end of the summer each year, and when Olivia asked if I’d like to go, it wasn’t a hard decision. Giant produce? Fair food? Random displays and exhibitions? Count me in.

I’d never been to a state fair before, and it was simultaneously exactly what I expected and full of surprises. There were booths selling knick-knacks next to booths selling saunas and hot tubs. We visited the reptile house and saw fish and snakes and lizards. We walked around the craft pavilion and admired the things that people quilted, knitted, crocheted, and cross-stitched. We felt the difference between alpaca and sheep and muskox fibers. We watched performances by various dance groups. And then… we headed to the farm pavilion.

The farm pavilion is where the action happens. It’s where the livestock is kept. The smells are unmatched. We saw sheep and pigs and goats and cows. There was a pregnant pig whose piglets could come at any second! We were a little early to witness the wonder of piglet-birth… 12 piglets were born two days later.

Anyway, the animals weren’t what I wanted to see. I took a look to be polite, but let’s be real – I was there for the giant produce. The pumpkin weigh-off had taken place the day before, so I was looking forward to seeing what a 2,035 lb pumpkin looked like. Olivia told me that it was going to be the size of a small car which was completely overselling it, unless she meant a toy car for children. I have to be honest. I was underwhelmed. I mean, it was an enormous pumpkin, but it wasn’t car-sized. It wasn’t even big enough to take a “James and the Giant Peach”-style adventure in. Oh well.

Even so, the day wasn’t a complete loss. We saw a giant zucchini and a carrot with roots that were at least 4 feet long. Whoever dug that up had some PATIENCE. There was an endless display of regular-sized produce that had been judged to determine the best in show. Best snap peas. Best basil. Apples, potatoes, broccoli, etc. It’s endless. All I could think about was the judges. How long does it take for them to judge all of the entries? How on earth do they determine a winner? The judging criteria was posted – clean, uniform, undamaged, size, color, etc. – but still. It feels very subjective. And after you look at hundreds of snap peas, do they not all start to look the same?

Me with the tiny pumpkin.
Also, apologies for the fact that I have so few pictures from the fair. I hadn’t yet decided that I was going to blog again, so I wasn’t in the same photo-taking mode as I would have been otherwise.

The only reason I have this prize-winning zucchini picture is because my mom also grows zucchini, and I thought she’d be entertained by this 23.9 lb monster.

I could go on and on about this, but I have more important things to discuss. We were fortunate to be in attendance on the day of the infamous Cabbage Weigh-Off. I will try to explain, but just know that no words can bring to life the energy, the tension, the excitement that filled the arena.

We sat down on the grandstand overlooking the holding pen. The competitors, seated on large tarps and pieces of plastic, waited around the perimeter with their humans. In the middle, there was a scale, presided over by an official of the Alaska Department of Weights and Measurements. Yes. This is a thing that exists, and contrary to my first thoughts, they do, in fact, have other responsibilities besides weighing large produce at the state fair each year, but none is as important.

This is my only picture of the weigh-off, so for the rest, you’re just going to have to use your imagination. You can see the scale in the middle of the holding pen (FYI no one calls it a holding pen. I just think it’s funny to do so. And no one else considers the cabbages to be the competitors, but really, doesn’t that make the most sense?). The pavilion where this all takes place is enormous. This photo shows probably less than half of its entire length. The livestock is out of frame to the left. You can see a wall straight ahead, and behind that is the rest of the produce, the flower displays, and the rabbits.

As we waited for the festivities to begin, the cabbage fairies (I’m not joking) circulated in the stands with baskets of “cabbage candy” (green-colored white chocolate rosettes). I ate one because I’m always up for some unpackaged candy in a basket that people are reaching into with their definitely clean hands. It’s best not to think too much about these things.

The fairies, though! They were clearly important. I had to know more. I did some quick googling and got the scoop. They are second-generation cabbage fairies. The original fairy group was founded by the mother of the Gen2 lead fairy. She attended the cabbage weigh-off one year and was inspired! (Understandable.) She created this costume that includes a skirt made of cabbage-leaf-shaped placemats. (I read an article about them – see “Sources” below – and that was specifically called out.) I was excited to see what they had planned. I thought that there would maybe be a cabbage-inspired dance or something. You know, a performance. I was a little disappointed to learn that mostly, they just exist. They’re like cabbage ambassadors. They also attend the pumpkin weigh-off, but they don’t dress like pumpkins. They do add some orange into their outfits for the occasion, though. I still think a cabbage dance would be a great addition. I’ll send a suggestion in.

The fairies seem to be one part of a multi-level response to the understanding that watching the weighing of 40 cabbages is not the most thrilling activity. The pumpkin weigh-off involves maneuvering the pumpkins onto the scale using a crane. That sounded exciting! Unfortunately, the cabbages aren’t heavy enough to warrant a crane, so there goes that entertainment option. Some of Olivia’s friends were emceeing the event, helping to move things along by interviewing the cabbages’ humans. Much of the questioning was focused on the cabbage’s name and, if it wasn’t obvious, asking for the provenance of the name. The youth division was up first. We had Dave the cabbage, named as such because “I dunno”. There was also Slug Snack. I liked that one. I wish I had written more down because for some reason, they don’t record the names of the cabbages on the website, just their handlers. That’s not right! Give credit where it’s due.

I expected more from the adults, but honestly, they weren’t much better. I did my own judging, quietly giving each cabbage handler a score for their naming skills. I think that should be an officially judged category in the future. Maybe then, people would take it a little more seriously.

Other side entertainments included the recitation of the top 3 entries to the cabbage limerick competition – yes, you read that right. If you’re interested, you don’t need to be from Alaska to enter! You just need to be struck by the cabbage inspiration fairy. (Link to the winners is below.)

The word is that things weren’t too hostile this year because no one had grown anything close to record-setting size. It was a bad summer (in fact, one cabbage was aptly named “Bad Summer”) – too wet and too much temperature fluctuation. I was told that in ultra-competitive years, the competitors (the cabbages, not the humans) need to be locked up to prevent any possible tampering. Yes, that’s right. Cabbage tampering. Also, apparently, cabbages begin losing body weight the instant they’re harvested, so there’s this balance between waiting as long as possible to harvest and also getting your cabbage to the fair on time.

The biggest cabbages were 90+ pounds. The 2024 winner was 97.35 lbs and its human was also responsible for the winning pumpkin. We learned that looks aren’t everything when it comes to cabbage size. Some of the heaviest ones were not the ones that looked the biggest. It’s all about density.

After the fair is over, the cabbages and other produce are donated to “various Community Services and the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center” (according to the Alaska State Fair website). So enjoy that mental picture – rescued bears eating prize-winning enormous pumpkins and cabbages. Or google it (or find a link in “Sources” below) and you can find actual videos. Or if you’re in Alaska at the right time, you can go and watch it in person!

After the weigh-in, I felt a bit dazed. Olivia and I wandered around a little longer, checking out the rabbits and a bonsai tree display. We ate some fair food for dinner and more fair food for dessert. I went home with a stomach in revolt which feels like an indication of a successful day at the fair.

Sources

Honestly, I recommend checking out all of these links. I found them all very entertaining, and they’re quick reads.

To learn about the cabbage fairies and see some good pictures…

Bushatz, Amy. “The Alaska State Fair cabbage fairies take a final bow, ushering in a new generation.” Anchorage Daily News, 2 September 2023, https://www.adn.com/alaska-life/2023/09/01/the-alaska-state-fair-cabbage-fairies-take-a-final-bow-ushering-in-a-new-generation/

If you’re wondering what a prize-winning cabbage limerick looks like…

Alaska State Fair. “Giant Cabbage Weigh-Off Limerick Contest – 2024.” https://www.alaskastatefair.org/site/result/giant-cabbage-weigh-off-limerick-contest-2024/

If you’d like to learn more about what goes into growing an award-winning pumpkin (there’s a video!)…

Klecka, Joey. “Alaska State Fair crowns giant pumpkin winner for 2024.” Alaska’s News Source, 26 August 2024, https://www.alaskasnewssource.com/2024/08/26/live-alaska-state-fair-giant-pumpkin-weigh-off/

To see some bears eating large veggies…

Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center. “Big Bears Big Veggies 2024.” https://alaskawildlife.org/event/big-bears-big-veggies-2024/

Note: These external links are not maintained. If they stop working at some point, sorry! They worked once upon a time.

Welcome to Alaska!

Posted on March 11, 2025March 10, 2025 by Lark

Surprise!! Hello, friends! It’s been a LONG time, but we’re back in action! I must say, I’ve missed this. I’ve been feeling for a while like I wanted to get back to blogging, and hey, 2025 is the year! The real question – what am I going to write about? Yes, I’m a “normal” person again. You know, working a job that actually pays me (weird) but that also limits my vacation time (boo). Despite that, I have taken some fun trips since reentering the real world, and I’ve been itching to write about them. So, here we are! We’re going to talk about some new(er) travels and maybe hopefully someday get back to some unfinished adventures from the past. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, though. For now…

Welcome to Alaska!! Actually, getting back into things by talking about my Alaska travels is kind of perfect. How did this trip even come about? SO GLAD YOU ASKED. I was catching up with my friend Olivia who, fun fact, you already know! (Well, my faithful readers at least.) Olivia and I met in Armenia while we were both volunteering at Aleppo-NGO. We hit it off, and that was the beginning of a friendship that has survived the six (SIX?!?!) years that we’ve been on opposite sides of the world.

Olivia still lives abroad, and we’d been trying to coordinate a trip together. Schedules are tricky things, and we couldn’t nail anything down. Olivia said, “The only thing I know for sure is that I’ll be on home leave at the end of August.” We paused. I thought, “Wait, her home is…” just as she said, “Wait, my home is Alaska. Do you want to come to Alaska??” I think the “yes” was out of my mouth before she even finished asking. I looked at plane tickets. I bought plane tickets. And 6 weeks later, we were reunited! In Alaska!

I don’t know if you remember how we do things here (I don’t know if I remember how we do things here…), but a new place means a new list of first impressions. And so, here we go! My (very long-winded) Alaska (mostly Anchorage / some season-specific to the end of summer) first impressions…

(I promise all of my posts aren’t going to be this long, but I guess I had some pent-up writing energy after all these years.)

1. Flowers

There. Are. Flowers. EVERYWHERE. In people’s yards. In planters. In hanging baskets (we’ll come back to this). In landscaped medians. Sure, flowers aren’t unique to Anchorage, but I’m telling you, whatever people plant other places, there it’s more. It’s like people know that they only have a few months to enjoy them, so they’ve decided to make the most of it.

That’s the other thing. Having that many flowers with the climate what it is… that takes effort and planning. You can’t just wait for nature to make things happen because there’s not enough time. Growing season is late May to September. Those flowers are greenhouse and garage started.

Also, apparently the long daylight hours and summer temperatures make it so that the plants are especially large and vibrant. I believe it.

One of the many flowerbeds in the city. Look at those colors! I’ll include more individual flower pictures for your viewing pleasure as we go.

Two of the infamous hanging baskets… at least, I assume there are hanging baskets hiding somewhere in that mass of flowers.

2. Hanging Basket Capital of the World

I think Olivia made this up. What does it even mean? Who is responsible for handing out this honor, and how is it calculated? Quantity of hanging baskets per person? Per square mile?

Questions aside, there is a great volume of hanging baskets, and they’re all filled with flowers. And the flowers are all still alive which means someone is taking good care of them… or, I suppose, many someones, because with 9.5 hanging baskets per capita (invented statistic), everyone needs to be pulling their weight.

Aside from the summer care, people also do the work to keep the plants alive through the winter, either paying to board them at a greenhouse (no joke) or wintering them in a garage or basement until it’s time to get them ready to go outside again.

3. Weather

I have been to at least 5 places where people claim that their weather is more unpredictable than anywhere else in the universe. “We can have all four seasons in one day!” they say. “It’s like nowhere else!” I’m sorry to break it to all of those people, but this situation is not unique. It is, however, annoying, no matter where it’s the case. Alaska makes the list.

In my opinion, weather predictions are semi-useless always (sorry, weatherpeople), but in Anchorage, I don’t know why we even bothered checking. The best plan is to ignore the weather reports, decide what you’re going to do, and do it – while being prepared to dress for every possibility (LAYERS, waterproof everything, sunscreen, etc.).

4. Long days

This one feels obvious, but knowing it and living it are two different things. I wasn’t even there when the days were longest. Our days were around 7AM – 9PM, whereas the longest day has nearly 19.5 hours of daylight with sunrise at 4:20AM and sunset at 11:42PM! We had some late starts, but even so, we still had plenty of daylight and plenty of time for activities.

The negative of this is that you don’t realize how late it is, and then it gets dark and you realize, “Oh no! I need to be in bed, like, NOW.” Which may also explain our leisurely starts each day. So maybe it all cancels itself out.

The flipside of the long summer days is, of course, the short winter days. I’ve been struggling with our 9ish hours of winter sunlight at home. On the shortest day in Anchorage, they only get about 5.5 hours of sunlight (10:14AM – 3:41PM), and apparently, even then it never really feels like full-on daytime because the sun is so low.

5. Comfy college student dress code

I remember when I was looking at universities, I was drawn to Penn State because I saw people wearing sweatpants to class, and that was exactly the dress code intensity I was interested in (is that pathetic? Oh well). Anchorage fashion is absolutely my vibe – leggings, hiking boots or sneakers, an outdoorsy fleece, a puffer jacket, a headband. Count me in.

Dahlias are such satisfyingly chunky flowers.

Not quite as pretty as the flowers, but here you go: bear trash can. I should have gotten a picture of one in the city, but just trust me. They’re everywhere.

6. Up close and personal with nature – bear trash cans

If you’ve ever been camping in a bear-y area, you are familiar with bear trash cans. I read somewhere once that the challenge with designing these trash cans is that there’s an overlap between the smartest bears and the dumbest humans… but I digress. The point is, these trash cans are used in areas where bears frequent, and they’re designed with the intent that humans can open them while bears cannot.

Now, I had never seen a bear trash can until maybe college, when I started getting out into the wild more. City trash cans at home are, well, regular trash cans. They’re wide open, just begging squirrels and raccoons to come and feast. In Anchorage, every trash can is a bear trash can. The bears don’t care that it’s a city.

7. Life with animals

The bear trash can thing is linked to another observation – people are used to life being somewhat dictated by wildlife. This was strange to me because there aren’t many wild animals at home that would cause me to change my plans. My presence strikes fear into the hearts of foxes and rabbits and squirrels. Deer flee from me in terror. Sure, if I saw a bear, I would stay out of its way, but there are no bears in my neighborhood. Bears live in the woods where “Be Alert for Bears” signs are posted.

The animals of Anchorage are poorly trained. The bears don’t seem to know that they’re supposed to stay in the woods. Olivia’s mom took me on a field trip to see a “neighborhood moose” (a moose… in the neighborhood). It was eating apples from someone’s tree. She had no sympathy, saying that if those people cared about their apples getting eaten, they would have put up netting around the tree. I guess that’s like having a garden with no fence getting eaten by rabbits. Like, what did you expect?

“Oh, it’s just a baby!” Olivia’s mom exclaimed when we spotted the moose. Moose. Are. Big.

As we drove away, she rolled down the window to tell some people who were jogging with a dog that there was a moose up ahead. They thanked her and just turned around, rather than taking a chance with the dog/moose combination.

Olivia said that in the week before I came, she was jogging on the coastal trail (a path along the water in downtown Anchorage) and saw three black bear cubs on the trail. Her thoughts went from, “Oh, cute!” to, “Wait, where’s mom?” anddd she turned around and went back the way she came.

Okay, I mean, all of this makes sense to me. Of course you need to respect nature in a different way when you’re living with animals like that. But it’s just something I never have to think about, whereas there it’s a part of life.

Okay one more moose picture because I’m still not over the whole “seeing a moose in the neighborhood as it eats your neighbor’s apples” thing.

8. “Lower 48”

This is another “makes sense but I’d never thought about before” observation. People are constantly talking about “the lower 48” aka the contiguous USA. I found this fascinating because down here in the lower 48, there is no catch-all term for the rest of the “mainland” states. “The other 47”, perhaps? But when would you ever use it?

I also felt bad (not really) because it’s like Alaska is constantly thinking about us down here, but how often do any of us think about them way up there? Poor Alaska.

9. Acting like Alaska is not far away

People in Alaska, at least the ones who travel to the lower 48, talk about traveling back and forth like Alaska isn’t really that far away. If I didn’t know any better, I would think that Alaska was located smack dab in the middle of the US. People are “just in town for the weekend” or are “back and forth”. So casual. Multiple times, I found myself listening to conversations where I felt like I needed to jump in and clarify, “I’m sorry, we’re talking about LA like Los Angeles? Like the LA that isn’t close to here? You’re going there? For the weekend?”

Anchorage to Seattle is a 3.5 hour flight with an hour time difference. Anchorage to Los Angeles is 5.5 hours. Anchorage to Philadelphia is a 4-hour time difference and at least 11 hours of travel. IT IS NOT CLOSE. Boggles. My. Mind.

10. Private planes and pilot licenses

Alaska has the highest percentage of licensed pilots per capita in the USA. A 2023 article said that 1 in 78 Alaskans is a licensed pilot which is 6x the number anywhere else in the US.

This makes sense because Alaska is not the most accessible place. Only 20% of Alaska is accessible by road. Juneau, the STATE CAPITAL, isn’t accessible by road, only by boat or plane.

This also means that there are a ton of small, private planes. On a nice day, it sounds like they are constantly flying overhead. There are even some houses with airplane garages and neighborhood runways! Many people have houses outside of Anchorage that they travel to via plane.

Can you spot the runway? Can you spot the AIRPLANE sitting in front of someone’s garage? Can you spot the garage that looks suspiciously big enough to fit said airplane??

We also drove past the Lake Hood Seaplane Base… I should have taken a better picture but was too busy gaping. There are nonstop seaplanes and little plane huts. It’s wild.

Since I didn’t take a good picture of the full scope of the area, please appreciate this snip from Google maps satellite view. And this isn’t even the whole thing.

In case you’re having trouble seeing what we’re looking at in that last picture… SEAPLANES. SO MANY SEAPLANES.

11. Balto

If you’ve never heard of Balto, the sled dog that saved the town of Nome, Alaska from a 1925 diphtheria epidemic, you need to watch more animated movies.

To summarize, the doctor in town quickly raised the alarm and asked for antitoxin to be sent ASAP. Without it, the entire town could be wiped out. The nearest supply was in Anchorage, but the only way to reach Nome in the winter conditions was by using the dogsled mail route. (The port was closed for the winter, there was no train to Nome, and planes at the time couldn’t handle the trip.) A train took the serum north, but it still needed to travel 674 miles west by dogsled. It was estimated that it would only keep for 6 days on the trail, 3 days fewer than the fastest travel time recorded.

A relay was organized with 20 mushers and over 150 dogs. The conditions were horrible, with temperatures of -50°F and colder, blizzard conditions (snow and wind), and January winter darkness. Multiple mushers got frostbite. Many dogs died along the way. The journey was completed in 5.5 days, and thanks to the quick response, fewer than 10 deaths were recorded in Nome (though there were likely additional unreported deaths in the surrounding Alaska Native communities).

Many people think Balto gets outsized glory considering that he and his team traveled only the final 55 miles. Togo, another lead dog, led his team 170 miles to pick up the serum and then another 90 miles back to hand it off to the next relay team, covering one of the most dangerous parts of the journey. Most other teams traveled 25-40 miles.

ANYWAY, the point of all of that is: Balto gets a LOT of glory. You can find him everywhere! I have pictures with THREE Balto statues from my time in Alaska. I’m sure that’s only a small sampling of the full supply. If ever you see a statue of a dog (even in NYC Central Park), I bet you $1 it’s Balto.

Whew! Okay, that was a lot. I hope you’re feeling slightly acclimated to Alaska. There’s more to come! Until next time…

Me and Olivia with Balto in downtown Anchorage.

Me and Olivia with Balto at the visitor center in Palmer.

Me with Balto outside the Iditarod museum.

Sources

I decided to start including my research sources in case anyone is interested in some additional reading (or feel free to ignore if you’re not). Some are pretty entertaining. Also, now you can know that, when I post things that seem absolutely insane, I’m not making things up… I’m just believing and re-posting things that other people made up. (English teachers – I know these are improper citations, and I don’t care.)

Flowers/Hanging Baskets

Anchorage Parks and Recreation. “Frequently Asked Questions.” Municipality of Anchorage. www.muni.org/Departments/parks/pages/ghfaq.aspx

Lowenfels, Jeff. “Alaska is the land of hanging baskets. Here’s how to store yours in winter.” Anchorage Daily News, 7 September 2023, www.adn.com/alaska-life/gardening/2023/09/07/alaska-is-a-land-of-hanging-baskets-heres-how-to-store-yours-in-winter/

Planes (I barely used this article, but it was fascinating)

Johnson, Acacia. “The lifeline of flying: the pilots connecting remote communities in Alaska.” The Guardian, 22 May 2023, www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2023/may/22/its-almost-spiritual-the-female-pilots-connecting-remote-alaska

Balto

National Park Service. “Togo.” www.nps.gov/people/togo.htm#:~:text=Though%20Balto%20received%20the%20credit,at%20the%20age%20of%2016

Alaska Mushing School. “The 1925 Serum Run.” www.alaskamushingschool.com/learn/1925-serum-run-to-nome/

Note: These external links are not maintained. If they stop working at some point, sorry! They worked once upon a time.

Welcome to Quito and Quito Botanical Gardens

Posted on February 19, 2021 by Lark

Welcome to Quito! After nearly two weeks of baking in the Galapagos sun, the cool, night air that greeted me in Quito, Ecuador’s capital, was a welcome change! Quito is way up in the highlands, built on the side of a volcano at an altitude of 9,350ft (2,850m) (for a couple of reference points, Denver, CO is at 5,280ft/1,600m, and Cusco, Peru is at 11,200ft/3,400m… so Quito is somewhere in between). Unfortunately for me, the cool temperatures didn’t extend to daytime hours, so I was still sweating my brains out most of the time.

Last time, we left off on Isabela Island, and the trek from there to my Quito hostel was… lengthy. It involved a 2-ish hour ferry back to Santa Cruz (this was a rough one… I did that thing where I closed my eyes and repeatedly told myself that I didn’t feel nauseous in the spirit of “fake it ‘til you make it”. Didn’t work), a 40-minute taxi ride across Santa Cruz to the northern dock (with our good friend Fredy from our visit to the Santa Cruz highlands!), a 5-minute ferry ride to Baltra Island (where the airport is located), a 10-minute bus ride to the airport, a 4-hour wait at the airport (my family’s flight was earlier, but it didn’t make sense to go separately), a 2-hour flight to Quito, and finally, a 1-hour taxi ride to the city (I researched public transit and it was NOT worth it). Woof.

I have lots of botanical garden pics, so I’m going to start putting them in now. Enjoy!

More dangly flowers! They’re like Christmas tree ornaments.

I gave myself one “chill/get organized” day in Quito before reentering sightseeing mode. After nearly 4 weeks of constant go-go-go, first with my parents in Peru and then with my aunt, uncle, and cousins in the Galapagos, I needed to pull myself back together, take a few deep breaths, and most of all, do some laundry! My clothes were all gross, to the point where it was a struggle to decide what to wear/forgo washing while everything else was being cleaned. I lugged every single item of clothing that I had (7lbs, apparently) to a nearby laundry shop and paid a lady $4.50 to wash it all. Not bad. When I got them back, I think my clothes were the cleanest they’d been in 10 months.

The next day, I rejoined the world. It was a Sunday, so I found an English-speaking church online, got some public transit advice, and set out on my first adventure. Well. The day got off to a rough start. On Sundays, some of Quito’s major roads close to car traffic for the “Ciclopaseo” (bike path). It’s actually awesome – people can bike/walk on 18 miles (29km) of closed roads! But for me, it was a headache. Bus routes on those roads are rerouted, so I hopped on the first bus that was headed in the right direction and figured I’d walk the rest of the way once I got close.

Okay, great, except Quito is HUGE. Since it’s in a valley, it’s somewhat narrow but very long, and for some reason, I could not get a handle on its scale while looking at google maps. I would look up the location of something, see where it was in relation to me, and think, “Okay, looks like maybe a 10-minute walk.” Get directions… “40 minutes”. WHAT.

So, I got off the bus thinking, “I’m pretty close now!” NOPE. 25 minutes. Church started in 20, so I powerwalked it. That would have been fine… except that the high elevation soon had me panting, and surprise! HILLS. My gosh. I juuust made it on time but had to pause outside for a minute to avoid passing out. Inside, I spent the beginning of the service attempting to silently breathe heavily (impossible) and trying (failing) to stop sweating. Well, the good news is that I’ll never see any of those people again. (The bad news is that I’ve gone to church a bunch of times throughout my travels, and no matter how much time I allow to get there… I show up nearly late/panting and sweaty EVERY TIME. I guess that’s just kind of my thing now.)

This flower is crazy! And pretty! But like… what?

Ah I love this one too. (Spoiler alert: I love them all.)

After church, I made my way, at a much more leisurely pace, to the Quito Botanical Gardens. I estimated it should take 10 minutes to walk there. Ha. 30 minutes later…

Botanical gardens are the BEST because you get places like this in the middle of a city

I LOVE BOTANICAL GARDENS. I don’t know anything about plants, but I love flowers. I mean, I also don’t know anything about flowers, but sometimes, it’s nice to have something that you enjoy without needing its whole backstory. And so, I’m going to tell you a little bit about the botanical gardens in general, but mostly, just enjoy the pretty pictures. I don’t know what anything is.

This is the cactus pavilion. I just made that name up, but that’s what it is.

Also, what on earth is happening with this one?! Fascinating. (These captions are basically just going to be my internal dialogue, so apologies in advance.)

Ecuador has incredible ecological diversity, and the Quito Botanical Gardens attempt to capture that diversity in one place. There are plants from all of the country’s major ecosystems… I really appreciated the “tropical rainforest” greenhouse. I was already melting outside, and inside, it was EVEN HOTTER. It actually made the million-degree outside air feel cool when I finally exited (an effect that was, sadly, short-lived).

This is some sort of tropical plant. I know because it was in the bazillion-degree tropical greenhouse. I took very few pictures in there because I was dying.

Roses!! There was a rose garden, but it wasn’t doing especially well. I probably wasn’t there at the right time. But these are looking very pretty!

There were loads of interesting bamboo structures around, and since I had just come from Peru where they were finishing up the **bamboo roof** on our building, I was extremely excited about them.

This is bamboo, too. To make the walls, they split the bamboo and used the fragments to create a flat-ish surface. What a funky shape!

And then there’s this… I am obsessed with this. I want it in my future yard. I don’t know what the thought process was because it’s not especially functional (at least based on my assessment)… but if they were going for pretty and fun to walk through, they nailed it. Except beware because there’s an irrigation system that might surprise you with a nice drip down your back. But hey, if it’s hot enough, that will make you like it even more.

I LOVE THESE. They’re some of my most favorite flowers, and lucky for me, they’re not just found in Ecuador. I’ve even seen people growing them in our neighborhood in Pennsylvania! They’re “lantanas” which I only know because I love them so much and figured it would be good to find out what they’re called so that I can have some someday.

They come in a bunch of different colors.

Some succulents from the cactus area. I think succulents are so interesting and also am sure that if I ever got one, I’d do the impossible and manage to kill it.

I laughed at this… palm tree? It kind of looks like a ginormous aloe plant, but pretty sure it’s a palm tree? Also, those fronds are a little spiky and VERY intense

These. I love them. A part of me wants to eat them because they look a bit like a delicious candy. Also, honestly, they might just be weeds that were growing but I don’t care. I’m no flower snob.

The greenhouses are beautiful! So picturesque.

This is in the “carnivorous plants” greenhouse. When I first got to the gardens, someone went over the map with me and gave recommendations (in Spanish) for where I should go/in what order. I think that I was focusing so hard on understanding what he was saying that when he got to “carnivorous plants”, my mind was so busy translating that it said, “Wait, WHAT?” My eyes got super wide, and pretty sure I looked terrified. He laughed at me and assured me that they don’t eat people. I felt so silly afterward because DUH, I know what carnivorous plants are, but my brain just failed to process the information properly. Whoops. Oh well. Happy to entertain. Anyway, here they are. Ready to eat me.

These have to be the weirdest plants. (Also, I have to admit that even though I knew they weren’t going to eat me, being around them gave me the creeps.)

This is not a human-eating flower. It’s just a fun, pretty, dangly flower!

The orchid greenhouse was one of my favorites! There are over 4,000 identified species of orchids in Ecuador, and it has the most endemic orchid species (meaning they occur naturally ONLY in Ecuador) of any country – over 1,700! The botanical garden hosts more than 1,200 species. I didn’t know much about orchids and still don’t… BUT, now I’ve seen a ton of them, and I love them.

But remember, there are 1200 species in the botanical gardens, so this is like nothing.

They’re so interesting! They just look totally different from other flowers

Ooo these are super cool with the multi-colored top and the white bottom! And I clearly have no idea what I’m talking about. Except that they’re definitely cool.

I know that this is totally manmade, but they did a good job of making it feel like a little bit of organized chaos, just like natural nature.

THESE. I don’t have anything else to say. Just look at them!

I think that’s all for my orchid collection.

The plants suspended overhead are my favorite part

Eventually, my wanderings led me to the botanical gardens’ collection of bonsai trees. This was fantastic for multiple reasons. First, bonsai trees are fascinating. Second, they’re housed in the most incredible bamboo structure. I spent more time looking at the bamboo than I did the trees… oops. But come on, can you blame me? Check it out.

Lots of little bonsai trees on their own little podiums

I know that this is probably the dumbest thing I can say… but look at this! It’s just like a tiny tree! (Duh, Lara, that’s the whole point… I KNOW. But it’s still mind-boggling.)

Interrupting the bamboo content with another tiny tree…

Okay, last one. But this one has what looks like tiny little flowers on it, and I am in awe. It’s just like a tiny tree.

I ended my visit in the Zen garden and, since I had nowhere to be, I spent nearly an hour sitting by the pond, enjoying the peace and quiet and reading a book. The botanical gardens are in the middle of a busy park, but somehow, they block out the noise and feel like a secret, silent oasis.

Altogether, I spent about 4 hours in the gardens. I was shocked when I checked my watch. It was like a time warp! It was also the perfect way to start my time in Quito and ease back into sightseeing mode. Calm, relaxing, and beautiful… what more could you want?

Don’t you feel relaxed just looking at it? I feel relaxed.

Isabela Island – Los Túneles

Posted on February 12, 2021February 16, 2021 by Lark

Does it feel like we’ve been in the Galapagos forever? Well, there are certainly worse places to spend however many months it’s taken me to write these posts. Believe it or not, though, we’ve made it to the final full day of our trip! We had one last tour scheduled, and the day kicked off when my alarm went off at 6:30AM… approximately 30 minutes after I fell asleep after spending most of the night trying, and failing, to fall asleep through the New Year’s party happening in the town square. Anyway, suffice to say that the day wasn’t off to an ideal start.

On top of that, it was raining. Of course. I was hoping that it would be like some of the other days when it rained in the morning but stopped by the time we got to wherever we were going, but we weren’t so lucky. The good news is that it’s hard to have a bad day in the Galapagos! Even with the rain, we got to see some amazing things.

Our destination for the day wasn’t too far away. We were headed to Los Túneles (The Tunnels), an area on Isabela Island (where we were staying) that’s known for being a great snorkel spot and for its lava formations. We’ll get to that, but first… it takes about 40 minutes to get there by boat, and on the way, we saw manta rays in the ocean!! I don’t think I even know that these things existed, and if you’re like me… think stingray, but HUGE. The ones we saw were probably at most 10ft (3m) from fin tip to fin tip, but on average, they’re about 15ft (4.5m). At their largest, they can be 23ft (7m) across! Oh, and weigh 6600lbs (3000kg). HOW did I not know about them?? Man, the ocean is a CRAZY place.

For context, we were staying in Puerto Villamil (on the south coast), and Los Tuneles is about at the blue pin.

The captain stopped the boat so that we could watch them, and the guide explained that they are very curious and often stop to investigate/“play” with boats. They were sticking their fins out of the water (looking creepily like shark fins) and flipping over to show their bright white undersides. They may be intimidatingly large, but they aren’t harmful to humans. They can’t sting, and they eat plankton by filter feeding, like blue whales. To do so, they swim with their giant mouths open (the largest ones could fit multiple grown humans in their mouths… eek!) and direct plankton and water in with the help of these weird little flexible horns that they have. Everything goes through a filtering system, and food gets consumed while water gets expelled. They can also swim impressively fast. At a sprint, they can reach speeds up to about 22mph (35km/h), though they usually cruise at closer to 9mph (15km/h). One more fun fact… they have the biggest brains of any fish.

Here’s a not-great-but-best-I-have video of one of them surfacing. You can see the horns I mentioned (they’re the things sticking out of the water above its gills).

After they got tired of us, we continued along to our first stop. Los Túneles has some amazing lava formations. As its name suggests, there are lots of tunnels underneath the surface, plus caves and bridges. Remember how we’ve talked about how lava formed the islands? As we’ve seen in other places, there can be voids underneath the surface in the form of lava tubes and such. That, in combination with the erosion caused by waves crashing into the coastline, created a landscape unlike anything I’d ever seen before.

Aside from the fact that it was STILL raining, I was thrilled to have the chance to walk around. We got to walk over some of the lava bridges, and the water surrounding us was so incredibly clear that we could see all sorts of sea life swimming by! We saw a few golden rays (so, so, so cool to see them swimming! Even if they’re much smaller than manta rays), plus tons of sea turtles. Oh, what I would have given to swim in that water! But it’s a protected area, so no swimming allowed.

Rain making a strong appearance in this picture.

With the bridges and the cacti… man. What a weird landscape, right?

There were also a bunch of blue-footed boobies with some of the brightest feet I’ve seen, plus their chicks. We had seen a few newborn chicks on Espanola Island, and they weren’t especially cute… they looked a bit like dinosaur/alien babies. These ones were a little farther along, though, and they were little fluffballs.

Okay so like… prepare yourself for so many blue-footed booby pics because I tried my hardest to narrow them down, and this IS the narrowed down selection.

They don’t seem to love the rain… Also, those little piles of white fluff (one in front and one in the back) are babies. They… yeah. They don’t look thrilled.

So many pics, I just couldn’t choose between them!

Also a little mysterious/menacing maybe?

From there, we headed to the snorkel spot. It wasn’t quite as cool as near the tunnels, mostly because the water wasn’t as clear, but there was a LOT of wildlife. In some places, it was very shallow, and the bottom had a lot of loose plant matter on it that people kept kicking up with their fins which made it even more difficult to see (just a PSA if you ever go snorkeling, especially with other people around. Try to keep your feet submerged while you’re kicking so that you don’t create bubbles, and be extra careful not to move the water too much if there’s stuff on the bottom! In general, just try to be aware of your surroundings. Your fellow snorkelers will appreciate it).

Hehe I actually have a few more blue-footed booby pics, but I thought you could use a break.

We saw SO many sea turtles, and some of them were absolutely huge… practically land tortoise-sized! There were approximately a billion fish, some in giant schools, that swam so close I could have touched them (but ew, no thanks). The most exciting thing was that we got to see sharks!! I know, who am I? Me, excited to see sharks? Well, I was also terrified, but I lived through my first shark sighting at Las Tintoreras and was ready for another.

The guide pretty much guaranteed that we would see whitetip reef sharks on the tour, named for the white markings on their fin tips (creative, right?) and the fact that they generally stick to shallower areas, usually in water 25-130ft deep (8-40m). They mostly hunt at night, and during the days, they rest in caves, often returning to the same cave day after day. A lot of sharks need to swim to breathe, but not these sharks! Their bodies can actively pump water over their gills, allowing them to rest in place. We popped our heads into a few of their resting caves and saw crazy numbers of sharks lined up across the cave floor like enchiladas. We saw one swimming, and I almost had a heart attack. He was right in front of me! Came out of nowhere and we were probably within touching distance. I backpedaled a bit, he turned, and whew! I survived. Again, though, I surprised myself and was more excited than scared. Nice!

It’s pretty dark in the caves, so photo-taking isn’t the easiest, but my cousin did get this picture of one chilling close to the mouth of the cave. Note the white tip on the top fin.

The last thing we did was swim through a mangrove… grove? Mangrove forest? Through some mangroves? However you’d properly say it, you get what I mean. Mangroves grow in the water and provide a great habitat for all sorts of creatures, especially for those who are a little more vulnerable, like babies. They can hide in the tangled roots of the mangroves, out of the sight and reach of predators.

We had one last exciting sighting for the day… seahorses! The seahorses found in the Galapagos are Pacific seahorses, also known as GIANT seahorses. Get this… they average 4.5-7.5 inches in height (12-20cm). Massive, right? Like other seahorses, the males carry the babies. Females deposit eggs into a pouch, the males fertilize the eggs and seal the pouch, and after 14 days, they go into labor, pushing out little baby seahorses that are around a centimeter or less in height. They can be a variety of colors, including green, brown, maroon, grey, and yellow. We got to see three! They were clinging to the mangrove roots with their tails, and without a guide pointing them out, there’s no chance we would have spotted them. I suppose that’s kind of what they’re going for…

Seahorse photos also thanks to my cousin!

After that, we headed back to the boat and rode “home” to Puerto Villamil. To everyone’s delight, we saw more manta rays on the way back! What a great day!

That was our final full day on Isabela. The next afternoon, we took a ferry back to Santa Cruz to catch our flights to the mainland. I was headed to Quito, Ecuador’s capital, and the rest of my family was headed back to the States. We did have time for one more little exploration… near the dock in Puerto Villamil, there’s a snorkeling spot called “Concha de Perla” (Pearl Shell). It’s a sheltered little lagoon where you can swim with sea lions and turtles and rays… it’s supposed to be really great! We didn’t have time to snorkel, but we did enjoy walking there through the mangrove groves (hehe) and admiring the crystal-clear water at the other end. So, if you’re ever on Isabela, I strongly recommend snorkeling there. As for me, I guess I’ll just have to wait until I visit again someday!

Of course with some sea lions doing their best to be in the way

The church in Puerto Villamil… interesting architecture

The smaller dock used for excursion departures

North Seymour Island – walk around some blue-footed booby nesting grounds.

Las Grietas and Los Gemelos – lava tubes and other cavities beneath the surface contributed to the formations in Los Tuneles. Check out some lava tubes and collapsed magma chambers on Santa Cruz Island!

Las Tintoreras – if you’re a fan of bright blue water, you’ll love Las Tintoreras.

Sierra Negra Volcano – hike to one of the volcanos that formed Isabela Island and admire some amazing lava colors!

Española Island – go back to where our Galapagos journey began and see some baby Nazca boobies!

Isabela Island – Sierra Negra Volcano

Posted on February 5, 2021February 5, 2021 by Lark

Most Galapagos day tours have a similar pattern… boat ride, walk around and look at animals, snorkel, boat ride, home. On our second-to-last day, we did something a little different and went on a hiking tour! It was to Sierra Negra (Black Mountain), one of the six shield volcanoes that make up Isabela Island, the largest island in the Galapagos. Five of these volcanoes are still active, Sierra Negra included. Its last eruption was in 2018! The main town, Puerto Villamil, is located just to its south, but thankfully, the lava from that eruption mostly made its way north. There are, however, parts of the hiking trail that are still closed because they were covered by lava. Sierra Negra erupts approximately every 15 years, so keep that in mind when you’re planning your trip! Hehe just kidding. They’re super cautious and monitor the volcano closely, and no one is allowed to visit without a guide. I will say, though, that the previous eruption in 2005 came with no advance warning signs… sooo the only sure bet is to steer clear.

Well, I didn’t know any of that before we went, and maybe that’s for the better. We were picked up bright and early, as usual, and took a bus from Puerto Villamil to the eastern side of the volcano. The tour involved a hike up the rim, a walk along the perimeter, and then an exploration of the lava fields to the northeast of the caldera.

Sierra Negra, besides being one of the most active Galapagos volcanoes, has the largest caldera. It’s oval-shaped, and its long axis is almost 6 miles (9.3km) across! Interestingly, it’s also very shallow, only about 330ft (100m) deep, making it the shallowest one on Isabela.

The beginning of the hike was a gradual but constant uphill as we made our way up the side of the volcano to the rim. Remember, shield volcanoes are short and wide and are formed by long-duration eruption events where very flowy lava is supplied continuously. Explosive eruptions, in contrast, are shorter-lived and result in taller and steeper volcanoes. The shallower slope was fine with me! No need to rock climb our way to the rim. Even so, it reaches an altitude of nearly 4,500 feet (1,120m), so don’t be imagining some little hill!

There was a decent amount of vegetation along the way, but as we moved farther up, it began to thin. Sierra Negra is the greenest on its southern slope, the windward side, because it gets more moisture thanks to the wind. That’s also where the Sierra Negra wild tortoises are mostly found. At the start of the hike, there were green, leafy plants and trees lining the path. By the time we reached the rim, there wasn’t much vegetation taller than I am, and the wildlife sightings were limited to a few little birds.

One of the only critters we saw during the hike

Our first view of the caldera was a bit jarring. We were lucky that it wasn’t too cloudy, giving us decent visibility to the other side… which was VERY far away. I mean, I know that I told you how big it is, but to stand there and see miles and miles of black lava rocks… it’s a strange sight.

Isn’t it amazing? The dark spots are cloud shadows

The guide told us that the lava patterns on the floor of the caldera tell the story of how it was formed. I’m not fluent in lava (and honestly, I had trouble paying attention to the guide), so I can’t tell you what they say, but it is interesting to see how much variation exists in something that, at first glance, appears somewhat uniform.

Some better views of the lava variations on the caldera floor

If I told you this was another planet, would you doubt me for a second?

There are a bunch of big cracks along the perimeter, like this one

The caldera was cool, but without a doubt, the best part of the excursion was the lava fields. To the northeast of the main caldera, there’s a “parasitic cone” called Volcán Chico (Little Volcano). I’m not a big fan of that name… it sounds kind of gross. Alternatively called a “satellite cone”, it’s a location where lava escapes from fractures in the side of the volcano, outside of the main caldera, forming cone-shaped lava accumulations. The final leg of the hike took us through the lava fields to the cone of Volcán Chico.

The lava fields are… thought provoking? That’s probably an uncommon assessment, but for me, they prompted a whole series of “THAT’S CRAZY!” thoughts. For example, Isabela is one of the youngest Galapagos islands. As I walked across the barren expanse of lava, I kept thinking about the fact that at some point, all of the islands looked like that. Seeing that made it even more amazing that plants and animals managed to survive and eventually thrive there. Like… there was NOTHING at the beginning. Now, some of the islands even have rainforests!

There is a little bit of life trying to pop up

The guide pointed out various formations along the way and explained that the different colors of lava result from the oxidation of various minerals. By looking at the coloring, scientists can determine what lava came from which eruption. The least colorful stuff is usually more recent because it hasn’t had as much time to oxidize. I’ve seen a lot of lava in my life, but I can’t remember ever seeing so much color and vibrance. It was beyond amazing. And beautiful!!

There are also natural vents across the landscape, places where you can hold your hand above a hole in the ground and feel heat coming out. It’s a little spooky to think that you’re feeling the heat of the Earth’s core. Eek! Also creepy is when you see a formation that looks like it could be water, frozen in time. It’s a bit of a reality check, like, “Hey! In case you forgot, this used to be FLOWING. Oh yeah, and it wasn’t water. It was MOLTEN LAVA.” Nope. No, thank you. You can keep that molten lava faaaaar away from me.

Okay so like I said, I didn’t do a great job of listening to the guide, but he was really amped about this material on the lava… I THINK it’s sulfur, but don’t quote me.

This looks like a wave in the ocean. Okay, now imagine it’s molten lava.

A partially-collapsed lava tube in the lava fields.

Finally, we reached Volcán Chico. The view is bizarre. You can see the northern part of the island, and it doesn’t look like it belongs on this planet. Elizabeth Bay is in the distance. The best part, though, is the COLORS around the cone. I’m not even going to attempt to explain it. Just soak in the amazingness of these pictures.

Sorry in advance for the million pictures that are nearly identical… except that I’m not sorry because they’re awesome and you have no idea how many I filtered out to end up with these million that I want to show you.

I look pretty happy in this picture, but I promise you that this doesn’t even begin to do my excitement level justice.

Then there’s this… black, black, black, GOLD!

It’s like a treasure trove of the world’s prettiest lava rocks

The guides started herding us back to the bus before I was ready to go. It was like looking at really pretty fall foliage, where you wish that you could capture what you’re seeing and what you’re feeling and bottle it up forever, but since you know that you can’t, you want to stay as long as possible to try to imprint it in your brain and heart. You know? Orrr maybe that’s just me. But I guess I did an okay job because even now, I get that same feeling when I close my eyes and imagine that I’m back there, gazing out at the otherworldly landscape.

The hike back was mostly uneventful, but we did get to experience the massive difference in weather conditions between the lava fields and the volcano rim. In the lava fields, the weather was hot and bone dry. As we walked along the rim, it got wetter and wetter, and by the end, we were basically walking through a cloud. And I’m sure that at that same moment, the lava fields were just as hot and dry as when we left them. It’s all about the wind/topography/it makes my head spin!

A nice panoramic photo that absolutely does not do the caldera justice. But I had to try.

We were exhausted when we got back to town, but since it was New Year’s Eve, we went to sleep early and set our alarms for 11:30PM so that we could check out the happenings in the main square. I was only about 20% sure that we would actually wake up, but amazingly, we all dragged ourselves out of bed and joined the festivities!

Ecuador has some funky New Year’s traditions. People make effigies, either of actual people or characters or something that represents the previous year, and at midnight, they’re set on fire as a sort of cleansing ritual before the new year. You know, on our early morning bus ride to the volcano, I thought that I saw a roadside stand filled with paper mâché heads, but it seemed too weird to be true. I assumed that I was out of my mind because it was so early. Nope! Most families make an effigy, and they need to get their heads somewhere!

There were some bigger scenes prepared to be burned at midnight as well… this depicts an incident that occurred at the end of 2019 when a crane unloading a generator from a boat collapsed, spilling hundreds of gallons of oil into the ocean. Obviously, oil spills are never good, and in a place like the Galapagos, they have the potential to be extra bad. I think they contained it really quickly and minimized the damage, but still. Not good.

Here’s a video of the post-midnight mayhem, and you can see different people coming up to toss their effigies on the fire.

After that, we tried to go back to sleep, but our hotel’s great location near the center of town meant that we could hear the New Year’s party going on into the not-so-wee hours of the morning. I think I fell back asleep when it stopped at around 5AM. Ugh.

Iceland Lava Rocks – okay, not the official name of the post, but if you want to see more cool lava colors, check it out!

Perito Moreno Glacier – for a completely different otherworldly landscape, do some glacier trekking!

Mount Aragats – speaking of volcanoes, why not visit Mount Aragats, the volcanic crater that gives Armenia its tallest peak?

Isabela Island – Tortoises, Flamingos, and the Wall of Tears

Posted on January 29, 2021 by Lark

After our morning tour to Las Tintoreras, we still had half of the day free for more activities! My aunt and I went into town after a brief stop at our hotel and started asking around about renting bikes. There’s a 3 mile-long (5km) gravel path to the west of Puerto Villamil (the main town on the island) that winds past different points of interest, and we wanted to make a plan to explore it later in our stay on Isabela.

Here’s Isabela Island, for reference again. And Puerto Villamil, the main town, is on the southern coast.

Welp, as is often the case with traveling, that is NOT what happened. We talked to a few shopkeepers and realized that since the next day was New Year’s Eve, stores were going to be closed for the next two days aka the rest of our time on the island. If we wanted to bike instead of walk the 3+ miles each way, this was our last chance. There was really no question… we went back to the hotel, broke the news to the group that we were NOT going to be having a chill rest of the day, and quickly got ready for another outing.

The girl at the bike rental place gave me a map and some recommendations of where to go and in what order. I love it when someone removes the guesswork and just tells you what to do! She showed me how to get out of town and then recommended that we visit the tortoise breeding center and flamingo lake before following the bike path. There was a general “Do we really have to see more tortoises?” vibe coming from the group, but since she who holds the map holds the power, I said yes, we did. And so, off we went. Also, before you start thinking of me as some sort of travel dictator, I’ll just say that we saw a lot of tortoises on our trip and no one ever regretted a tortoise sanctuary/breeding center visit in hindsight, this time included.

Isabela is, by far, the largest island in the Galapagos. It’s nearly four times the size of the second largest island, Santa Cruz, and was formed by six shield volcanoes. Isabela is home to the most wild tortoises of any island, and due to its size and difficult-to-traverse topography, there are actually five different subspecies of tortoises found across the island. These roam freely in five of the volcano calderas.

The tortoise breeding center on Isabela was founded in 1995 after some fires in the southern part of the island reduced the southern tortoise populations. Even before that, the tortoises faced survival challenges, such as competition for food with an ever-growing population of non-native goats (these have since been eradicated from Isabela). Tortoises were brought from across the island to the center to breed, and the populations have been seeing steady growth ever since. The center protects eggs and hatchlings, and once the tortoises grow big enough to give them a good chance of survival, they’re released.

This map shows where all of the subspecies of Galapagos tortoise are from. As you can see, there are five on Isabela, and they’re each somewhat centered on a caldera.

I enjoyed this visual aid in the little information center. It shows a little timeline of human life vs. tortoise life… the human life starting with a baby and ending with a tombstone around 100 years (optimistic)… and the tortoise starts with an egg and ends with a full-grown tortoise still alive at 150 years.

Hehe I thought it was funny seeing this tortoise flopped on the ground. Looks like she’s having just one of those days, you know?

The tortoises at the breeding center are fed three times per week.

These tortoises were going CRAZY for their leaves.

This guy got scared and hid in his shell. It’s pretty cool… they tuck their heads in and then use their arms to cover/shield their heads.

LOOK AT THIS SHELL. This is a Cinco Cerros tortoise and their shells are just about as flat as they get. It’s almost comical.

After we left the breeding center, we biked a bit farther down the road to hopefully see some flamingos! Isabela has the most flamingos in the Galapagos, and they can often be spotted feeding in the many salty and brackish lakes near Puerto Villamil. We weren’t there at an ideal feeding time and thought we were out of luck when we reached the first lake and saw nothing. Luckily, there were some people coming off of a side street who told us that there were a few hanging out in the next lake over! Awesome!!

The empty flamingo lake… but even flamingo-less, it’s a pretty view!

Flamingos!! You can (maybe?) see one flamingo in the front lake area, and there are two on the far end of the second lake area.

The flamingos were pretty far away, but that didn’t make seeing them any less exciting. My camera lens wasn’t even nearly strong enough to get good pictures of them, so my uncle taught me about the “poor man’s zoom” aka take as many pictures as you can, and once you’re looking at them on a computer, crop the best-quality ones. Ha! So… I took a lot. You can judge the effectiveness of that strategy for yourself.

These two were so far away that there was really no hope

From there, we biked back to the main road and started on the bike trail. The trail started with a sandy stretch, but that thankfully became a nice, packed-gravel path. It was a super pleasant ride, mostly flat with a few uphill sections that weren’t too bad if you accelerated into them a bit.

This sandy stretch was NOT my favorite part of the path. Also, very bold move of me to take a picture while biking on this because I wasn’t feeling especially stable.

Doesn’t this look like it’s meant to be a painting?

We decided to ride to the end of the path first and then slowly make our way back, stopping at the different sights along the way. The path ends at the Wall of Tears (Muro de las Lágrimas), a memorial to one of the many sad chapters in the Galapagos human history. After World War II, a penal colony was established on Isabela as a bad solution to the problem of an oversaturated prison system in Ecuador. If you remember from the Galapagos History post, there were other penal colonies in the Galapagos throughout history, and none of them ended especially well. This one was no exception.

In 1946, about 100 inmates and 30 guards were sent to Isabela. Wooden structures used by American soldiers during WWII were repurposed into prison buildings. From the very beginning, it was a nightmare. There were significant food and water shortages. Many prisoners died from tuberculosis and other diseases. The guards made up pointless tasks to keep the prisoners occupied, the worst of which was constructing a hulking wall out of lava rocks. This process involved harvesting stones from a not-so-nearby quarry and carrying them to the wall location where they were then broken into smaller pieces and stacked on the wall… all while baking in the harsh Galapagos sun. The wall became known as the place where “the strong cry and the weak die”.

“In memory of those who suffered and died here 1946-1959”

This project was a death trap for many reasons. Those who weren’t pushed to exhaustion by the heat and exposure were in danger of injury by the not-infrequent wall collapses. With no access to proper medical care, even minor injuries could lead to much more serious health problems. The guards were cruel and unrelenting, sometimes shooting inmates for not working hard enough. Many people died, slaving over a worthless wall. In 1958, the prisoners had had enough. They rebelled, escaped from the colony, hijacked an American yacht, and sailed to the mainland. Many prisoners and guards were killed in the uprising. The event was reported in American newspapers, shedding light on the horror of the colony, and it was finally shut down for good in 1959.

Today, this portion of wall is all that remains of the prison. It was 620 feet (190m) long, 30 feet (9m) tall, and 20 feet (6m) wide at its base. People say that the wall is haunted, that you can still hear the wails and cries of those who perished, hence the name “The Wall of Tears”.

Everything that I read before we went said that you shouldn’t expect too much, that it’s not especially spectacular or impressive. I don’t agree. It has a sort of haunting beauty to it, and anyone who thinks it isn’t impressive has probably never built anything. The stones are stacked up with no mortar, hence the many wall-collapses during construction, and they’re fitted together like a puzzle. To support its height, the wall has a super thick base that narrows as it rises. Along its length, the whole thing undulates, like a snake. I don’t know whether it’s haunted or not, but there is a definite heaviness to the place. I could feel it clutching at my heart as I walked around, amplified even further by the fog that settled in while we were there.

This is how the weather conditions looked when we started our hike…

…and this is how it looked by the time we came down. That fog really just rolled on in while we were up the mountain.

Nearby, there’s a mountain you can climb for a view of the sea and surrounding area. The weather was already looking a little questionable, but by the time we got to the top, there was no more question. It was going to rain, and we needed to get back to town ASAP.

The trees looked kind of eerie with all of this moss (I assume?) hanging off of them.

We hiked approximately forever… and then there was practically nothing to see from the top.

It was cool to see the coastline, though.

The rain really messed up our plans to visit the other sights along the path on the way back to town. We made no stops, just biking and biking and trying to get back to town and out of the rain in case there was a deluge coming. So, it wasn’t quite the outing we expected, but hey, that’s life!

Santa Cruz Tortoises – if you’re not tired of tortoises yet… meet the tortoises of Santa Cruz!

San Cristobal Highlands – and if you’re STILL not tired of tortoises, meet the tortoises of San Cristobal!

Isabela Island – Las Tintoreras

Posted on January 15, 2021 by Lark

Welcome to Isabela Island! After our few days on Santa Cruz, we relocated one final time to Isabela, the largest island in the Galapagos. We’ll talk more about Isabela in the next few posts, but our first day’s adventures started just off the southern coast of the island in a small group of islets called “Las Tintoreras”. The islands are named for the white-tip reef sharks that can be found in abundance in the surrounding waters, or tintoreras in Spanish.

Here’s Isabela Island, for reference. And Puerto Villamil, the main town, is on the southern coast.

Las Tintoreras is the group of little islands that you see here, just off the southern coast of Isabela.

We had a “late” start to the day… our tour pickup was scheduled for 9AM which was a welcome change from the usual 7:30AM and earlier departures that we were used to. We actually had time to eat breakfast without having to just shovel food into our mouths while running out the door! What a luxury!

We also had a much shorter boat ride, which my stomach wasn’t upset about (hehehe get it?). We loaded up and were at the little islands in under 20 minutes.

He was running along the shore while we rode by in our little boat

Along the way, we saw a couple of penguins! Most of the penguins in the Galapagos are located at the western end of the archipelago. If you recall from my intro to the Galapagos post (and even if you don’t), there are a bunch of different currents that converge on the islands. The Cromwell Current, an upswell current from the west, brings cold water from the ocean depths, helping to create a viable environment for the Galapagos penguins. They still have to be careful not to overheat, but in the case of the penguins that live around Las Tintoreras, they’re helped by the many lava caves and crevices along the coast which they use to hide from the hot sun.

Honestly, I find these penguins to be a little creepy looking. I’m not sure exactly why, but I don’t think the red eyes are helping.

Galapagos penguins are endemic, meaning they only exist in the Galapagos, and are the second smallest penguin species in the world! They’re only about 20” (50cm) tall and weigh about 5-10 pounds (2.5-4.5kg). They also have the distinction of being the only penguins that live north of the equator! Most of them live in the southern hemisphere, but since the equator passes through the Galapagos, the tippy top of Isabela Island/penguin country is actually in the northern hemisphere. Made it by a hair! They eat mostly anchovies, sardines, and mullet and can swim at speeds up to 20mph (35kph) underwater while hunting!

Like other penguins, Galapagos penguins mate for life. They can mate up to three times per year, but this really depends on the availability of food. In years with extreme weather and food shortages, like El Niño years, the penguins forgo breeding or abandon their young. This means that their populations are seriously threatened by climate change. They’re endangered, with the current population estimated at fewer than 2,000 penguins.

I love the contrast between the lava and the water

We went ashore on the largest islet, and I was amazed by how different the landscape is from Isabela, especially when the islands are so close to one another. Some people say that Las Tintoreras looks like another planet, and I’d have to agree. The landscape is dominated by funky black and reddish lava formations coated with white and green lichens on one side due to the prevailing winds.

Lots of lichens! (They’re the whitish stuff on the lava.)

One of the highlights of the tour is “shark alley”, a volcanic crack filled with shallow water where sharks apparently like to hang out and rest during the day before they go out to hunt at night. It’s said to be the best way to see sharks in the Galapagos without being in the water with them, but unfortunately, we weren’t lucky enough to see any. Even so, it was cool to watch the little fish hanging out in the shallow water. You can practically look straight down into the water from above! I can see why it would be super cool if a shark was there.

Shark alley from another angle. I estimated that the water is about 6ft (2m) wide.

Shark alley! Or, in our case, “lots of small fish but unfortunately no sharks” alley.

There are also a TON of marine iguanas lying around. They always seem to be lounging in groups, and that’s because they form colonies of usually 20-500 iguanas but up to 1,000! We’ve seen marine iguanas before, but I haven’t explained much about them. They’re unique because they’re the only lizards in the WORLD that are adapted to a marine existence. They’re vegetarians and eat algae and seaweed. Most of them get their food from shallow areas at low tide, but larger males will actually go diving for algae! They can hold their breath for up to an hour and dive down to 65 feet (20m) below the surface.

Research has shown that they probably share a common ancestor with the Galapagos land iguanas, genetically diverging around 4.5 million years ago to become a new species. They’re different from land iguanas in a few key ways that make marine life possible. They have long, sharp claws to help them cling to rocks, resisting the tides near the shore or underwater. Their tails are flatter which makes them more effective rudders while swimming. Their dark coloring helps them to warm up in the sun after coming out of the cold Galapagos waters. Flat noses and sharp teeth make it easier to scrape algae off of rocks. They also have a special gland that removes excess salt from their blood, a necessity when eating salty algae and seaweed! It’s expelled by a sneeze-like action, and it’s not uncommon to see marine iguanas with salt-encrusted faces. Aren’t they fascinating??

This is a common sight – marine iguanas draped all over the lava and one another.

Look at his little salt-encrusted face! Definitely not cute…

One thing that marine iguanas are NOT is pretty. They were called “imps of darkness” back in the day, and Charles Darwin described them as “hideous-looking” and the “most disgusting, clumsy lizards”. Ouch! It’s true, though. On land, they are horribly clumsy, but in the water, they are incredibly graceful!

Weirdly, even with these many adaptations, it is possible, if uncommon, for land iguanas and marine iguanas to mate. There are some “hybrid iguanas” which generally have a marine iguana father and land iguana mother. Most live on South Plaza Island, a small, skinny island near Santa Cruz. It has been observed that in years when algae and seaweed are scarce, marine iguanas will search for food farther inland. On such a small island, it’s much more likely that the land and marine iguanas will cross paths. Sometimes, a male marine iguana will come across a female land iguana who is still fertile, and voila! A baby hybrid iguana is born. The hybrid iguanas are infertile and have some qualities of each parent… they usually stay on land, but they have the sharp claws of marine iguanas, making it possible to climb cacti for food. Their coloring is unique, usually dark with light speckles and a banded body which is different from both marine and land iguanas.

But I don’t know if the multi coloring makes them any less ugly…

Anyway, back to marine iguanas. The males can get territorial, especially during mating season, and they engage in headbutting competitions if their initial head bob/body stiffening/mouth opening isn’t enough to scare off the invader. These headbutt fights can last for hours and include breaks. Usually, neither iguana is injured (except for pride-wise), but in rare cases, there could be biting and scratching.

We were lucky to catch the tail end (hehe) of an iguana fight, and my cousin took this awesome video from the boat (if you listen to the audio, you’ll hear that I put my money on the underdog, and he won!).

The tour also included some snorkeling time, and this was probably my favorite snorkeling of the whole trip. We got to see so many things! We were in a big, sheltered area, so the water was calm and without any strong tides. It was about 7-10ft (2-3m) deep which was perfect. There was enough space to maneuver, but you could still dive down to the bottom easily. Also, the water was incredibly clear, partly because the bottom was far enough away that people weren’t kicking sand and such up into the water.

Blue sea star! These can grow as big as 1ft in diameter!

Chocolate chip sea star. The name is perfect, right?

We saw all sorts of awesome things! There was a lobster, one of those ginormous red spiny lobsters, ambling along. It looked like a satellite, there were so many antennae and appendages coming out of it. There was A LOT happening on the bottom… starfish and sea urchins and anemones and mostly things that I don’t actually know what they are, but they were pretty! There were sea turtles and a LOT of fish. I swam around with these huge schools of razor surgeonfish (I think) and pretended I was one of them. And I swam next to a marine iguana!

Here’s another video that I didn’t take (shout out to my cousin and uncle who manned the underwater camera and GoPro long after I decided I was finished taking my phone into the water with me) showing a marine iguana swimming!

The coolest thing? I SAW A SHARK!! It was probably 12ft (4m) away from me, and it was maybe 3ft (1m) long. I was alone, and I started yelling and trying to get anyone else’s attention so that I wouldn’t be the only one who saw it. I should have just swum after it because only one person even heard me/paid attention… but I was so happy! I saw a shark and wasn’t terrified! I was just excited!

I felt like my day was complete after that! Man, what a rush! The tour was definitely what I would call “short and sweet” because we saw all of that and then were back on Isabela by noon! That’s crazy. We still had more adventures ahead which I’ll talk about next time!

I tried to figure it out, but I have no idea what kind of bird this is. Some type of finch, but that will have to be enough.

Some sea lions posing on the dock in Puerto Villamil

Las Grietas and Los Gemelos – check out my other favorite snorkel spot in the Galapagos, Las Grietas!

North Seymour Island – take a look at the Galapagos land iguanas and imagine what a hybrid iguana might look like.

Santa Cruz – Tortoises and Tortuga Bay

Posted on January 8, 2021 by Lark

Last time, we did some adventuring around Santa Cruz Island. We visited some spots downtown and checked out Las Grietas (aka the best snorkeling spot), Los Gemelos lava craters, and the lava tubes of El Chato Tortoise Reserve.

There are a few tortoise reserves on Santa Cruz, and I told our taxi driver, Fredy, to take his pick and that we’d be happy as long as there were lava tubes and tortoises. So, we ended up at El Chato. These reserves are different from the conservation centers because they’re privately owned, and the tortoises are technically wild! They’re there because it’s a good habitat, not because they can’t leave. It was weird to see them in the “wild”… we even saw a tortoise crossing the main road! (That sounds like the beginning of a bad joke.) It was a strange sight after only seeing them in captivity to that point. At least with tortoises, unlike with deer, you don’t have to worry about them speedily darting out in front of your car!

Anyway, El Chato used to be a cattle ranch, but around 20 years ago, the owners started working to return the land from farmland to a natural habitat for tortoises, changing the farmland vegetation to native vegetation. This transition naturally brought tortoises back to the land. Now, it’s a lush, green forest and is really beautiful! Besides the vegetation, there are also a bunch of muddy pools that tortoises love. They sometimes spend multiple days hanging out in them, likely to help regulate their body temperatures and maybe to also kill ticks and protect from mosquitos.

I’ve talked a little bit about tortoises in previous posts, but later in our trip, my aunt and I visited the Charles Darwin Research Center, also on Santa Cruz, and learned a lot about the Galapagos tortoises in general. There were originally fifteen distinct Galapagos tortoise species from ten different islands. Now, unfortunately, only eleven species remain, due mostly to human interference and the thousands and thousands of tortoises that were killed for food and oil back in the whaling days.

This map shows where each of the 15 species originated and differentiates between the ones that still exist (blue) and those that are extinct (pink).

The Darwin Center is a research hub that monitors the wildlife of the islands and works to minimize damage and neutralize threats. The Center is involved with all sorts of conservation projects, and as part of their tortoise research, they’ve identified genes from two of the extinct species, the Pinta and Floreana, in some living tortoises! The hope is that it may be possible to essentially recreate those species through careful breeding. It sounds insane but also kind of amazing!

At the Darwin Center. I’ll never get tired of looking at baby tortoises (note the folded up screen that they use to protect them at night)

It’s just crazy to me that these tiny little things turn into those giant tortoises

This is taxidermized Lonesome George. He was the last Pinta tortoise, found there in 1971. There was a global search for a female Pinta tortoise, but it was unsuccessful, and George died in 2012. He’s now creepily memorialized at the Darwin Center.

The tortoise species fit into two major categories: dome-shell tortoises, and saddleback tortoises. The Santa Cruz tortoises have dome shells. These are typical of tortoises that live in wet zones and where food is plentiful close to the ground. As you’ve seen from the pictures, that’s definitely true of the Santa Cruz highlands! In drier places with less vegetation, the tortoises had to adapt to survive. Saddleback tortoises have shells that allow a wider range of vertical motion which allows them to reach food higher off the ground. It’s so cool to see such a clear example of how different habitats impact how species develop!

This is a good comparison image, showing the difference between the dome shells and saddleback shells.

These are the most dramatic dome shells… It looks like a mushroom was plopped on top of this tortoise. Like it actually almost looks like the tortoise and the shell aren’t really connected.

I don’t know what kinds of tortoises any of these are, but just observe the similarities and differences in their shells. This one has a very dramatic saddleback shape.

You can see that this is clearly a saddleback shell as well, but it’s not quite as dramatic as the last one.

These are definitely from a wet island because those shells are like pancakes.

I was surprised to learn that most Santa Cruz tortoises are migratory. It seems crazy for that to be the case for such a slow-moving animal! They move anywhere from about 65-2,300 ft (20-700 m) each day, and they travel up to 6mi (10km) from the coastal areas to the highlands during the rainy season. Tracking has shown that while most migrate (and move back and forth between two general areas), some of them seem almost nomadic, wandering here and there without any clear rhyme or reason. One aspect of the tortoise conservation work in Santa Cruz has been educating the locals about these migrations and asking farmers to use raised barbed wire fences so that tortoises can freely move about.

In case you’re wondering how quickly that distance is covered…

The answer is, “Not very.”

As you can see, plenty of green things to eat close to the ground

Fredy (our taxi driver) said that the tortoises have the feet of an elephant, the neck of a giraffe, and the face of a serpent. He’s not wrong.

Is it just me or does it look like this tortoise is glaring at us?

This balance between allowing people to live their lives vs. conserving wildlife is complicated. Some people think no humans should live in the Galapagos or even visit. Others think that people should be able to do whatever they want. Neither of these extremes is likely, so the question then becomes, “How can we best serve both interests?” It’s like a case study in compromise, and I think it’s something we can all probably learn from. Don’t get me wrong, the situation is far from resolved. But people are paying attention and trying to figure it out, and I think that’s worth something!

I think this little buddy is a Galapagos flycatcher

The tortoise reserve was our last stop for the day, so we headed back into town when we were finished. Everyone was pretty exhausted!

We had dinner at one of the little restaurants along this road. It closes to traffic at night so that they can put tables and chairs out in the street!

The next day, we had time for one more adventure before we had to catch our ferry to Isabela Island. We decided to check out Tortuga Bay, aka the MOST BEAUTIFUL BEACH IN THE WORLD. Yes, another one of those. Like I’ve said, I’m not a great judge of beaches, but this one was definitely memorable.

We walked from our hotel all the way to the beach, first walking about seven blocks to the start of the trail, and then walking another half hour/45 minutes on a shade-less trail to get to the bay.

The scenery along the way isn’t especially exciting, but I was fascinated by these cactuses with trunks that look like cartoon tree trunks. They’re in the opuntia cactus family, or “prickly pear”, and while many varieties exist, the Galapagos opuntias are endemic (they only exist there) and are the only ones that grow like trees! The tallest opuntia are found on Santa Cruz where they can grow up to 40ft (12m) tall! That’s crazy, in case you didn’t know.

Opuntia cactus trunk! Does this not look like a cartoon drawing of a tree trunk? It doesn’t look real. And it feels kind of plasticky and fake as well. But it’s not!

The opuntia cacti are well-suited to survival in the Galapagos. They can store large amounts of water, making them resilient in long dry periods. They can grow directly on rocks, an essential ability when the island is nothing more than a giant lava rock. Finally, they’re able to self-pollinate, so they don’t need other cacti nearby to reproduce. It’s not hard to see why that might be useful in a situation where you’re a wayward seed trying to populate a barren island! These cacti are a critical part of the Galapagos ecosystem. Iguanas and tortoises eat their pads, fruit, and seeds. Cactus finches eat their flowers, fruit, and seeds, extract water from their pads, use them for protection when building nests, and distribute their seeds across the islands (thanks to their poop!).

Try to tell me that these look real. (I won’t believe you.)

When we finally reached Tortuga Bay, we found ourselves at Playa Brava, the longest and flattest beach I’ve ever seen. With its white sand stretching out as far as the eye can see, it felt almost otherworldly. Most beautiful beach in the world? You can decide.

I like how they can curl themselves up like this.

Outcropping separating Playa Brava from Playa Mansa

We walked the endless beach until we reached another, Playa Mansa, where you’re allowed to swim. (You can’t swim at Playa Brava because the tides are too dangerous.) It’s supposed to be a great snorkeling spot because of the nearby mangroves, full of sharks and sea turtles, so my cousin and I decided to check it out. We tried to swim out to deeper water, but the ground sloped so gradually that even after swimming pretty far, it was maybe 3ft (1m) deep. Even so, it was so cloudy that I could barely make out the bottom! There were a lot of dark spots, but most of them seemed like seaweed until… eek! Was that a stingray?? I turned back to check… and it was! A small one, maybe 8 inches (20cm) in diameter. Apparently, I was emotionally unprepared for an actual stingray. My heart skipped, and I let out an underwater scream in surprise! It scared me half to death, and then my scream scared it (hopefully only) half to death! It shifted to the left, then to the right, and then sped away, like when a person gets scared and looks around spastically before sprinting away. Once I calmed down, I felt terrible for scaring it so badly. Sorry, little stingray! It was kind of hilarious… but I also decided that I did NOT like how close I was to it without being able to see it.

I swam over to my cousin to say that I was ready to go. She said that she had seen a shark fin and tried to swim after it, but she couldn’t see much, and it disappeared. I got the “I need to get out of this water immediately” feeling, and we sprinted back to the beach. Later, my uncle told us that he talked to some people who had been kayaking where we were swimming, and they said there were TONS of sharks in the water. EEK. It would have been cool if we could see them, but you know how I feel about swimming in water that I can’t see through. Normally, I’m just irrationally afraid that there are sharks. This time there really were! Nope nope nope. Noooo thank you.

This seems like a good time for a few more relaxing beach pics…

Mangroves! These are another super important plant. Their roots are a great place to lay eggs and hide away if you’re a small fish or other critter trying to escape larger predators. This also means that they’re popular with birds who are looking to eat these little fish! And sharks, doing the same.

I really thought that I took a video of this dude swimming, but I can only find pictures (argh!)

Look! There he goes! You can see his tail snaking behind and propelling him forward.

We headed back to town with plenty of time to grab our bags and head to the dock before our ferry departed. The entire organizational system for ferry boarding is a disaster, but I’m not going to go into that (you’re welcome). Just know that my calling that mess a “system” is incredibly generous. The chaos drove my engineering mind insane (I have approximately 1000 ideas for how to improve it). We ended up on a ferry with a “floating casino” sort of vibe. The only two windows were blue and dolphin-shaped, casting bluish light across the interior, and the seating was a plush, wavy bench that wound around the perimeter. Before we left, a guy walked around with a roll of plastic bags for anyone worried about getting seasick… hehehe that’s comforting, right? We had a bumpy start, but after the captain came down and moved some people around to better balance the boat, it was much smoother! Thank goodness because the ride was maybe 2.5 hours, and I don’t think I could have taken another ferry ride like the one from San Cristobal to Santa Cruz (where I closed my eyes and pretended that I was totally comfortable while repeating to myself, “You’re fine. Your stomach is fine. No, your face doesn’t feel hot. You don’t feel queasy. I’m sure we’re almost there.”).

The ferry took us from Puerto Ayora, Santa Cruz to Puerto Villamil, Isabela.

Next time, get ready for more adventures on a new island!

Las Grietas and Los Gemelos – explore more of Santa Cruz and learn about the crazy volcanic activity that created some of the island’s most interesting features.

Kicker Rock – for more adventures of swimming in cloudy water with definite but invisible shark companions…

San Cristobal Highlands – investigate other Galapagos claims of “world’s most beautiful beach” and check out the San Cristobal tortoise conservation center.

Diamond Beach – check out this beach in Iceland that may give Tortuga Bay a run for its money… though in a VERY different way!

Española Island – meet some especially colorful members of the marine iguana family.

Santa Cruz – Las Grietas and Los Gemelos

Posted on December 30, 2020 by Lark

We had one “free day” worked into the schedule while we were on Santa Cruz, and like before, that didn’t mean “do nothing day”. My aunt had a whole list of things that we could see on the island without a tour, so we plotted a route and headed out for another very long day.

Here’s the location of Santa Cruz in relation to the other Galapagos Islands! It’s the second largest island, about 20mi/32km wide x 25mi/40km long.

Santa Cruz is the second largest island in the Galapagos archipelago and is a “shield volcano”, like many of the other Galapagos islands. This means that there wasn’t an explosive eruption that formed it (exactly what it sounds like/what you likely imagine when you think “volcanic eruption”). Instead, there was an “effusive eruption” which means that low-viscosity lava flowed steadily for a period of time. Since the lava is extra “flowy”, it spreads out farther and results in a land mass with a much more gradual slope than would result from an explosive eruption. So lava steadily accumulates in layers, building a short and flat-ish island, called a “shield volcano” because it has a similar shape to a round shield lying on the ground.

It’s a very ecologically diverse island, the only one in the Galapagos with six different vegetation zones. I was amazed once again by the difference between the coastal areas and the highlands, but we’ll get to that later. Anyway…

On the way to our first official stop of the day… Puerto Ayora had some very thematic Christmas decorations. I guess the reindeer get a little help from the locals when delivering presents to the islands!

Also, I know that I wasn’t at the birth of baby Jesus, but I don’t know about this rendition… Sea lions, frigatebirds, tortoises, and blue-footed boobies? (Also, the green and brown stuff on the ground is broken glass. There’s a lot of interesting recycling happening on the islands.)

Our first stop was the local fish market. This is where the fishermen bring in their catches, and there are big, concrete tables where they’re sorted and prepared for sale. If you like fresh fish or lobster, this is the place to be. I personally don’t like fish, fresh or otherwise, but I do always enjoy watching people at work (in a totally non-creepy way), skillfully going about their business. The major tourist draw is the photo op, of course. The fish attract all kinds of critters hoping for scraps… sea lions and an assortment of birds that hang around and, if they’re feeling especially cheeky, try to snatch fish right off the tables. The fish attract the birds, the birds attract the people, and you’ve got yourself a crowd!

Lobsters! Lobster fishing is strictly regulated in the Galapagos. The season lasts from September 1 – December 31 each year. These are red spiny lobsters and are the variety most commonly found in the Galapagos.

Taking pictures of tourists taking pictures of this lady doing her job.

Sea lion trying to get some pity scraps. This lady isn’t buying it.

Breaking the two-meter rule (only once, I promise!)

We weren’t there at prime time, so things were pretty quiet. That was fine with me! When everyone was ready to move on to the next adventure, we headed for the dock. Our destination was “Las Grietas”, or “the cracks”, which is a deep crevice that was created when the lava forming the island cooled and contracted. This particular crack falls at the junction of an underground river and the sea, so it’s filled with brackish water (mix between fresh and saltwater). There isn’t a large, clear passage to the ocean, but there is enough space for water and fish to trickle in. No sharks, though!

We passed this funky house on the way to the dock!

No clue what this kid was doing, but apparently we were all entertained by it (pic by my uncle)

The only way for a human to get to Las Grietas is through a boat ride/walking combination. You can’t drive there. You can’t walk the entire way. You can’t boat the entire way. You take a water taxi from the main dock in Puerto Ayora, cross the harbor, and walk about 30 minutes from there. You can also take a boat a liiittle farther and save yourself maybe 15 minutes of walking, but then you still have to walk the final stretch.

We passed these salt mines along the way! Saltwater comes in with the tide and fills the area, and after the water evaporates, people harvest the salt that gets left behind (you can see the white rings of salt around the pools in the picture).

With my aunt and cousins and some pretty flowers we passed on the walk (pic by my uncle)

Las Grietas is about 330ft/100m long and consists of three “pools”. As I researched, it seemed like everyone (everyone who seemed even mildly adventurous, that is) agreed that you should absolutely go all the way to the third pool. My uncle, cousin, and I geared up in our fins and snorkels and headed down a set of wooden stairs to the first pool. This is the biggest one (at least in my estimation), and it’s crowded because that’s as far as most people go. Not us! There’s not much to see in the first pool, so we swam to the end pretty quickly. From there, we climbed over a section of slippery rocks (only falling once… eh, maybe twice… but always very gracefully, of course) into the small, rocky, shallow second puddle (it’s way too small and shallow to be called a pool, so I’m amending the name). If I didn’t know better, I would have thought we’d reached the end. But no.

To reach the third pool, you can either climb over some large boulders or swim about 5 feet through an underwater “tunnel” beneath them. The tunnel route is way easier, but at the time, we didn’t know that was an option. (I think it’s semi-common knowledge, so I’ll take the blame for that intelligence failure.) We only found it by chance. At the rocky transition from the first pool into the second, I tossed my fins ahead so that I could use my hands as I crossed over the rocks… and when I reached the puddle, one of them had vanished. Uh oh. They’re bright orange floating fins, so I knew it had to be on the surface, but then why couldn’t I see it?? After some minor panicking and intense searching, I found it wedged between two rocks. There was clearly a current that carried it there, and a quick peek underwater revealed the tunnel! So, it was two exciting discoveries in one. I got my fin back, and we found an easier route into the third pool! My uncle had already scaled the boulders to get there… whoops! But at least the return trip was easier.

Well, it was quite the journey, but we finally made it to the third pool. It’s slightly smaller than the first, but we had it all to ourselves. It was awesome. The water was incredibly clear and calm, all the way to the bottom, maybe 10-15ft (3-5m) down. As soon as we passed that last boulder wall, it was like the world around us ceased to exist. Underwater, the silence was the ear equivalent of being in a pitch-black room. And then the fish! Everyone said that there’s not much to see underwater, but I disagree. Sure, there were no sharks or turtles, but there were a few schools of BIG fish cruising around… like at least a foot long (30cm), and many of them were probably bigger than that. The best part was that they were almost completely unfazed by us. I dove down and swam along next to them. They looked surreal… like they were mechanical fish or were too three-dimensional to be real. And just the general ambiance… I don’t know exactly how to explain the feeling, but from now on, if I need to imagine a place where I feel completely at peace, I’m going to be there, suspended on the surface of the clearest, quietest water with hyper-realistic fish gliding by.

We had the pool to ourselves for a while, and it was glorious. By the time another group showed up (and completely shattered the serenity), we were about ready to go anyway. We made our way back under the boulder, through the puddle, over the slippery rocks, across the first pool, and up the stairs (which were now about a million degrees after baking in the sun… and I had no shoes at the bottom so that was really great planning on my part).

Loving life. I didn’t bother taking my waterproof case-equipped phone, so all of these pictures were taken by my uncle or cousin

GIANT fish hiding in the rocks along the edges of the third pool. I glimpsed something light as I swam by and got in closer to investigate. I’m a terrible estimator, but he MUST have been more than 2 feet long (60cm). I think. And I know I said that I didn’t take any pictures, but for this one, I borrowed my cousin’s camera and got right up in this fish’s face because it was too dark to see it very well at the time, and I really wanted to know what he looked like.

Just looking at this picture is making me all sorts of calm

Okay just one more picture (also because I have practically no pictures of me from this entire trip, so here are 90% of them in one go, all with me looking especially cool in my snorkel)

From there, we walked to the water taxi stop and then boated back to town. The water taxis, by the way, are hilarious. The ride back to town went something like: get on water taxi, stop by a boat anchored in the harbor, pick up empty water jugs, drive to another boat, pick up person, drive to another boat, drop off empty water jugs and pick up bag, drive to another boat, drop off person, drive to dock, give bag to person waiting on dock, let off passengers. I never understood what was going on, but I was always entertained.

After a quick stop at our hotel, we headed back out in search of a (regular) taxi to take us to the highlands. On Santa Cruz, people generally go to see two things in the highlands: a tortoise sanctuary (of course) and a pair of craters called Los Gemelos. Fredy, our taxi driver, suggested that we visit Los Gemelos first, and I figured he knew better than any of us since he’s probably taken people to both places a million times.

Los Gemelos, or “the twins”, are two craters formed by collapsed magma chambers. What are those? When lava is flowing, it flows fastest at the middle. The lava at the top and edges cools and hardens more quickly while the lava beneath continues to flow. Eventually, the eruption stops, halting the supply of lava and leaving behind empty space beneath the hardened lava. This can take the form of a tube-like cavity (lava tubes) or, in the case of the craters, large, open chambers. At Los Gemelos, through a combination of erosion and seismic activity, the unsupported lava above the chambers became unstable and collapsed, forming the twin “craters” that you can visit today.

This sign by the craters roughly shows their shapes/relative sizes. I read somewhere that the larger one (I assume?) is about 1 mile in diameter (1.6km) and 920 feet deep (280m).

In the surrounding forest (pic by my uncle)

None of us really knew what to expect from Los Gemelos, but they were really cool! It’s like being in another universe because they’re in the middle of the largest Scalesia forest in the Galapagos. This is an important habitat for tropical flowers like bromeliads and orchids as well as mosses, lichens (a fungus/algae mashup), and birds. It feels like you’re in the middle of the rainforest! Since the craters collapsed a long time ago, they’ve filled in with plants as well.

Impossible to fit the entire crater into one picture without a wide-angle lens or a panoramic photo

And then this forest… can you believe this is the same island where those barren salt mines were??

The tree to the right of the path in this picture reminded me of a giant spider. Eek! But the moss hanging off of those branches is the craziest thing!!

The density of the fog changed pretty quickly, but there were times when it was hard to even see the opposite side of the craters

After our hike around the craters, we loaded back into the taxi and headed to El Chato, one of the private tortoise reserves on Santa Cruz. It used to be a ranch, but for the last 20 years or so, they’ve been working to restore native vegetation and create a natural habitat for the tortoises (more about that in the next post!). Tortoises aside, they also have some lava tubes that you can walk through! It’s kind of creepy to think that you’re walking through a giant pipe where hot-enough-to-vaporize-you lava used to flow! But also… how cool!?

This is weird. There’s a lower tunnel area where you can see my cousin walking ahead, and then there’s a layer of cooled lava and ANOTHER cavity above that. Very confusing looking.

I loved looking at the shapes of the walls!

Next time, we’ll talk about the tortoises at El Chato and some final Santa Cruz adventures!

San Cristobal Highlands – compare the Scalesia forest and lava craters of Santa Cruz to the highlands and crater lake of San Cristobal!

Kicker Rock – snorkel in the open ocean surrounded by some very NOT clear water (and probably over a bunch of sharks… eek!)

North Seymour Island – check out the weird bird life and barren landscape of North Seymour Island, just north of Santa Cruz

Flattop, Peak 2, Peak 3, and Flaketop Hike

Alaska State Fair & Giant Cabbages

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