snorkeling at los Tuneles

Ok so this place freaked me out juuuust a bit. Rebecca said it was cooler than Tortugas but a bit more dangerous to enter. You here Tuneles, you automatically think tunnels right? She said we were gonna go on a small boat, which we did. Then she said in order to enter the tunnels you have to go through some huge waves, which mind you, the waves here ARE HUGE. And then she goes on to mention how people have died swimming in the tunnels cuz their wetsuits got stuck to the rocks at the bottom and weren't able to break free. So you tell me...does this sounds like a cool trip? HELL NO! So I'm picturing some "Guardian" type scene (you know, the movie with Ashton Kutcher & Kevin Costner), where they jump off the helicopter, and they have to go into that little cave where these divers got stuck and you can see the waves smashin into the rocks & they have to wait for the right moment to go in. Well, it turned out to not be nearly as bad as it sounded. We did have to wait for a break in the waves to go through, but there weren't really cave-like tunnels. It was open all around and the rocks were formed like bridges over the water everywhere, so it was underwater tunnels when you go swimming. Mind you, these tunnels are only like 10 seconds long. But nonetheless really cool!

We saw a beautiful spotted eagle ray swimming around. O and there was this one spot where there were sea turtles everywhere. Man those things can get BIG! There was one point where there were about 3 sea turtles just circlin around Drew, Claudio, and I. I was a little freaked out and wondered why they were circling us; remember, slow on land but freakin jets in the water! That's the closest I got to a sea turtle the entire trip. They weren't as scared as in other places. It was pretty easy to swim over them and follow them around for a bit before they panicked and jetted away. And ah yes, the Galapagos Ringtail Damselfish were everywhere swimming in out of little craters on the ocean-floor rocks. Cute little things they are indeed LOL.

And of course something ALWAYS SCARED ME. Claudio saw a tintorera (white-tipped shark) and had the most scared look on his face as he paddled as hard as he could back. He just kept sayin SHARK! SHARK! I SAW A SHARK! in his rough hispanic accent. I was like o crap and starting swimming back hard LOL. But of course, out of stupid curiousity we all stopped, turned around and looked for the dumb shark lol. Halfway through I changed my mind and decided that maybe it wasn't such a good idea to chase a shark LMAO. So i swam back to the boat and like 5 seconds behind me was Claudio. And yes you can imagine who stayed behind...Dora the explorer (Dre) and the black version of Steve Erwin (Drew) LOL.

So yea, that was the end of our snorkeling trip and our last real adventure here at the Galapagos =(

snorkelin at Tortuga

ok so we took like a half hour boat ride out to Tortuga to snorkel. It was amazing! We circled Tortuga and saw tons of blue-footed boobies, masked boobies, and then male frigates in the middle of their "courtships" just puffin out the red chests...pretty cool. And you can see the sea lions laying out just chillin...what else,...o yes and a bunch of iguanas but there were so many that they looked liek little plastic toys LOL.
Now moving on to the amazing snorkeling part. But it didn't start out that way...at least for me. I jumped into the water and had a stupid panic attack cuz the water was too cold! LMAO but but but my mask smelled like chemicals too! so ha! i doggy paddled back to the boat, changed my mask and pulled myself together, THEN went back in LOL. I saw an octopus, a huuuge lobster, and a bunch of pretty colorful fish. O man and then there was like this ginormous seal lion that swam around us for a bit. I tried to swim by it but it left =( .... and THANK GOD we did not see any sharks cuz i would have flipped!!!!

LANGUAGES

ok so most people throughout the course of my life have questionned and made fun of why i have learned a few languages. Well growing up, i hoped that one day....i really would use it so i can tell people why i have learned it. Well, i must thank my parents for introducing me to my biggest interest when i was young. On my first day in the Galapagos, I'm sure that any other person would have been lost for a lot longer than I was, but with my knowledge LOL I spoke German, English, Spanish, and Portugues in one straight-away and found my way back...woohooo!!!! SUCKERS!!!!! LMAO

biking uphill

so yesterday added to my soreness...yay....instead of going downhill from the previous bike drop-off point we went uphill....in all, it was a 5 1/2 hr hike! but so worth it, we saw two volcanoes, sierra negra and chico...on the way we saw a bunch of adorable little waldraf birdies, haha locuses, annies, galapagos martins, and of course the wide leaf & thin leaf charles darwin bushes. My sister got reprimanded for climbing a volcano bomb LMAO, but here's the catcher, they were taken on what seemed from my view n thin path much higher with like 15MPH winds lmao, which one is safer? a dry boulder or a ledge with death written all over it LOL...o yes and for the first time i met a man from Michigan on our lunch break who was sailing around the world...COOL!

Isagalapagos

I finally arrived last night to Isabela Island after my last disappointing collegiate track meet =(

Drew, Dre, and I walked on the beach today and had a sand fight. The fight ended with Drew shoving my face on the ground as the tide came up and I drowned in brackish tasting water. To top it all off he shoved sand in my hair and my ear all while still holding my face in the sand....jerk!

Then, we went bike riding down the volcano path today, and tell my why im the very last one to start and zoom by everyone like they were standing still...I'm scared to press the breaks cuz i think ill whipe out and die on the barbed wire on the sides...hehehe and our guide was like, yea i saw you fly by and i just wanted to toss my bike off the edge and myself with it LOL....