South America,  Ecuador,  Travel

Galapagos Islands (San Cristóbal)

July 2, 2021 /

Take a boat to San Cristóbal, another big island, and the bones on the two-hour boat are almost falling apart. My sofa owner on this island is also engaged in the tourism industry. He said that most of the residents of the Galapagos Islands actually rely on tourism for a living. He has worked on cruise ships before, as a waiter, bartender, dive guide, fisherman and more. There is a specimen of a land monitor lizard outside his house. He said that when he saw this monitor lizard on the side of the road, it was like this. It was already dead, and there were turtle skulls and sea lion skulls next to it. When we went to visit the Interpretation Center, he suddenly received a phone interview, and when I came out of the visit, he had just finished the interview. He said that he finally found a job, and he will work on a cruise ship next month. He will work continuously for six months and take three months off. He said that he has not had a stable and formal job since February last year. He either goes fishing and sells it, or goes to the farm to do farm work to make money. So he was very happy to find this job with good income, saying that I brought him good luck.

After lunch, he took me to a relatively secluded small beach that took nearly an hour to walk to. The various volcanic rocks along the way are not easy to walk, and he even carried a guitar and a hammock. When I went to the beach, I met a pair of sisters from Florida and Washington State. One of them went to Beijing and Jinan as an exchange student for two weeks when she was in high school 17 years ago. She said that experience completely changed the trajectory of her life. .

There are fewer and fewer tourists in the local one-day group. Today, there are only 4 people including me, and they are almost becoming an elderly group. One is the grandfather who came from Switzerland and took a total of 24 hours on the plane. He is a professional photographer and takes pictures for newspapers and magazines. Another elderly American couple immigrated to Jerusalem, Israel in their 20s and have lived there ever since. They had been to Hong Kong and Taiwan more than 30 years ago, and they told me that they could not go to the mainland before the opening of the mainland, but now it is very different. The old man is a biologist who graduated from Stanford many years ago with a Ph.D. The old lady also took a small card machine and took three photos in two steps.

Due to the fierce weather and sea water, the group originally called "360" round the island can only become "180" peninsula. I saw thousands of schools of fish while snorkeling at Kicker Rock today, sea lions and sea turtles were swimming around, but unfortunately the photos can only be copied to a USB flash drive and processed when I have a computer. The volcanic rocks seen today are not the same as the volcanic rocks seen on another island, Isabela, a week ago, due to the different ages of the volcanic eruption. We also drilled into a lava cave and found that there are two upper and lower holes formed by two streams of lava, which is very interesting. The tour guide pointed to the small pieces of lava and said they were not very heavy, and then urged me to lift up a large piece of lava to take a picture, so it is no wonder that the big one is not heavy!

The elderly have a lot of experience, and I have a lot of feelings after spending a day with them. The grandfather from Switzerland said that he had been to South Korea, and found that the South Korea he saw with his own eyes was completely different from what he had seen in the news before. He said that he could not completely believe what was said about other countries in the news, so You have to see it for yourself to have a say. He said that everyone has heard that Switzerland has good educational, medical and social benefits, and that it is "the country with the highest happiness index", but it actually depends on the specific region. There are also many poor people there, and not everyone can enjoy those benefits. Regarding photography, he said that you must be patient, observe patiently and wait for the right moment to press the shutter. He first captures the subject with the camera lens, observes with his eyes, and finally thinks about the background story of the person or thing he sees with his heart. I admire the curiosity and studious spirit of American grandparents living in Israel. When they see and hear anything they don't understand, they will immediately ask the tour guide. Grandpa learned that I was a Chinese teacher, and asked me a lot of questions about Chinese, such as: how to type Chinese characters? There are only 26 letters in English, but there are so many Chinese characters in Chinese. How were newspapers printed before the invention of computer pinyin? Why was Beijing called Peking before? Wait.

A day of boating, snorkeling, hiking, drilling caves, and snorkeling will be somewhat exhausting. Although I admire the physical strength of these three elderly people in their 70s, I have also seen how exhausted they are physically and mentally after a day. The old lady went to the bathroom on the boat and called the old grandfather to help several times. They needed to rest many times during the hike, and they needed to go back to the boat early because they were too physically exhausted during the snorkeling. Many elderly people have worked hard all their lives, wait until they retire and then plan to travel around, but most of them are really unable to keep up with their physical strength, and their lives will be in danger if they suffer from serious health problems or accidents during travel. If I have the choice, I would rather travel as much as possible when I am young and in good health, because you never know what will happen tomorrow, or wait until you are old to see if you still have the strength and energy to see the world.

Since I came to Galapagos Island, I always eat fish every time I have a group meal on the boat, either albacore tuna or wahoo wahoo. The locals say that these two kinds of fish are everywhere and are easy to catch, so they are very cheap. . Although it is delicious, it is a bit tired after eating several meals. I asked them what other fish they should try. Several locals recommended brujo fish, but because it is not easy to catch and there are not many tourists, so now almost no restaurants will cook this kind of fish. Even if they do, the price is probably not high. Fei. The captain and fisherman of the one-day tour yesterday told me that you can find a small restaurant and ask them if they have this kind of fish. Although it is not on the menu, maybe they can make it for you. Today for lunch, I went to a small local restaurant that I used to patronize two days ago. After ordering, I remembered to ask if they had brujo fish. Sure enough, the proprietress took it out of the refrigerator and showed it to me. It’s a big one. The proprietress said that there will be this on the lunch menu tomorrow and asked me to come tomorrow, but I said I won’t be here tomorrow. So the proprietress said, let's make half a piece for you, and the price is still very cheap. It really did not disappoint, the meat was extremely delicious. The brother at the next table can speak some English when eating fish. I asked him what kind of fish brujo is in English. He said he didn’t know the English name, but brujo means “wizard”, and he couldn’t speak English for “wizard”. , but he explained that it was the male witch, from Harry Potter. He also told me that this kind of fish is called "wizard" because they live in the deep sea where you can't see your fingers. They are very mysterious and like wizards. The day before I left, I ate the brujo fish recommended by everyone, and I was very satisfied.

Going back and forth between the three big islands these days, I always inadvertently run into tourists I met on other islands before, and many of them became acquainted. Even some locals will often see and greet each other in a friendly manner. In the past few days, I have been visiting a bakery every day on this island. Their breads are the best I have eaten since I came to Ecuador. I went to buy bread in the afternoon and planned to take it away. When I had breakfast tomorrow, I said that I would go back to another island by boat in the afternoon. The girl in the store asked me when I would come back. I said no, and I will fly directly from that island tomorrow. gone. I paid and was about to leave, but the little girl said wait, then gave me a piece of bread that I often buy for nothing, and said, "This is to remind you of our bread." Enthusiastic locals! move.

I haven't posted food for many days, because the food I eat every day is the same, nothing special. The local small restaurants here usually decide the menu of the day according to the ingredients they have. A small board at the door will have a lunch menu, including a bowl of thick soup (chicken soup, fish soup, etc.), and there are usually potatoes and corn in it. Waiting for vegetables, the second main course is usually a large plate, including rice, beans, salad, fish, chicken, beef and pig. A favorite of the various entrees is the encocado, a traditional dish from the Ecuadorian coast. It is mainly a sauce made of coconut milk, onion, coriander, bell pepper, lemon and other spices. It can be eaten with chicken, fish or other seafood, plus some plantain slices. The dishes I have eaten these days include mote con chicharrón-with large corn kernels and fried crispy pork skin, yapingacho/llapingacho-with fried small potato cakes, sausages, fried eggs and salad, and grilled shrimp skewers.

  • yapingacho/llapingacho
  • encocado
  • encocado
  • brujo frito

In the afternoon, I went back to Santa Cruz from San Cristóbal on the already dreaded "bounce boat". After traveling for two hours and only ten minutes before reaching the shore, something unexpected and depressing happened. The boat stopped suddenly. It turned out that there was no gasoline. More than half of the passengers on the boat were all colleagues in the overalls of the island's national park. I heard that I was out of gas, so I was not nervous at all, talking and laughing, and took the opportunity to take various selfies. While they were enjoying themselves, the waves were getting bigger and bigger, and the boat was shaking more and more from side to side. I started to have slight seasickness, and the locals sitting opposite didn’t seem to be feeling well. At this time, a family of four locals next to me saw that I was a little uncomfortable, and sprayed my hands with the high concentration they brought with them. Alcohol, let me smell it to make me feel better. It did work right away, but after a while it started shaking again, so they gave me another Mentos to eat, and asked me to stand up and hold on to the handle, which made it easier. After waiting for half an hour, I finally waited for a small boat to come to refuel with gasoline. At this time, two of the group of people who were self-confident before lay down on the side of the boat and started to vomit. Fortunately, I had eaten lunch early and digested it. At this time, a kind passenger sitting in the back of the boat offered to change seats with me, and the open-top one at the back could breathe more fresh air. After refueling and tossing a lot, we finally landed, feeling much better. At first, I wondered why this ship was so unreliable, and the gasoline was not planned to be filled up, so it ran out ahead of time. If it wasn't close to the port, it would have been a long time drifting on the sea before someone came to rescue it? Later, when the group of people wearing island overalls disembarked, I found that each of a dozen of them was carrying at least one large checked box of that kind, probably on a business trip. This must be overloaded, the load is at least doubled, and the gasoline is not used up early! In any case, it is good to go ashore safely. Think about the fear of finding a boat floating in the sea with no one to rescue.

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