15 July - Day 41: Good Riddens

Today was a strange day. As most travel goes in 3rd world countries - you never really know what´s going on. My spanish is getting better, but sometimes that means people talk faster and I´m not completely sure of the plan - of course when I´m with my friends this causes much laughter and sarcastic comments, but because I´m with this super high maintenance young southern chick things are a bit different.

Let me catch you up and make this long story more bearable.

After some confusion we arrive at the farm - Pajaro Brujo - literally the witch bird. The farm is outside of the tiny pueblo of Santa Rosa in the highlands of the island of Santa Cruz. The weather is like a cloud forest. The vegetation is green - the mist clings to the hillside for a permanent overcast day. The air is droplets of liquid. We are in the clouds.

I get it - this is not what she expected. Planning a trip to the Galapagos you don´t imagine the cool misty highland air. But... here we are... ready to volunteer. This girl is tiny and come to find out has brought her flat iron to the farm - which I suppose is no surprise with the enormous rolling suitcase. The instructions are given and we are to pick our preferred tool - shovel, axe, hoe, rake... Of course the other surprise is that there is a group of 45 -11th and 12th graders from the US here to work for the day - thankfully we won´t be sharing sleeping quarters, but they are coming back all wee. for a few hours each day.

More on them later... back to ´bama. She feel sick, both physically - yes - you arrived a day before the trip - your body needs time to adjust - and mentally - cut off from her cell phone and internet she is crying and misses home. She is 22. I am trying to be motherly and checking on her, forcing her to drink some tea and trying to verbally comfort her (you know how I am with my personal space).

This is extremely challenging because in the back of my mind I am thinking she really needs a big reality check. All talk - this one. "Oh, I´ve traveled so much, I´m a dive pro, I´ve been here and there..." At one point during our conversation she mentioned that she used a machete before. OK - talk is talk because when we arrived at the farm she put on her work boots, grabbed a shovel and asked me if I thought it would be ok if she went to the room to rest. Of course - this is not forced slavery - so she went. A few hours later - after me and the high schoolers were clearing a trail I went to check on her. She is crying and wants to call her mom. Remember she has no Spanish even though she brags about taking it... ok, I´ll ask the staff if she can either use someones´ phone or go into town. She calls her mom from the farm and during fits of crying they decide to end her trip. It´s day 3. On one hand I am shocked and appalled and on the hand I am totally relieved.

The cook here, Luis, is super kind and goes into town with her to see about changing her Galapagos flight - and her mom works on the international flight.

There are no open seats on the Galapagos end, but she has decided to go to the airport anyway. She has paid $2000 for the 3 week trip plus $1200 for the international flight - I know that if I called my mom right now she would do the exact same thing for me - but what kind of delusional person puts herself in a situation like this? My patience has expired and now being alone has a sweet sound.

Back to the high schoolers. They are on a Jewish Retreat and from the Northeast - mostly. They are typical teenagers and once I decided that I had no choice I immediately fell into teacher role. I worked with a group of four and took the back seat - listening. Teenagers crack me up and since I´m digging in the dirt and covered in tattoos they acted like themselves. I actually enjoyed my group. The work is hard. Building a 5 foot wide trail from scratch means removing all the vegetation. The kids were kids - they worked for a few - talked for a few - ran to play with the chickens - took a lot of water breaks, but all in all we accomplished a lot.

After lunch the kids left, ´bama was still in the room and Margarita (a local volunteer) and I headed to the farm plot.

We arrived to find a female Giant Tortoise inside the farm area. This is bad news because she´ll eat all the plants... Of course I don´t have my camera with me - the heavy rains deterred me - but now I regret it because the next thing I know we are picking up the turtle and moving her outside the fence! I helped carry a Giant Tortoise!

After more digging we head back to the main house. I convince ´bama to try and eat some dinner. I am exhausted!