Mmmmm....

Author: Anabel
Location: San Cristobal
Woke up and headed over to a tortoise reserve center, Galapaguiera. We worked with machetes to kill and cut down evil little invasive flowers, mint-looking leaves, and other evil thorny things. Cool work, but there's a catch: tons of poisonous trees that bleed acid milk when you hit them. But thankfully no more moras. So the work was hard but helpful. We freed space so the tortoises could lay their eggs. When we had worked for a while we moved on to the exciting part: catching and weighing tortoises. We got the biggest one upside-down, roped it, and hoisted it with a huge iron pole connected to a weird scale thing, and six of us lifted the 90-kilo monster. Moving on, we got to see the turtle babies, and we actually got to hold them! It's not something that tourists are usually allowed to do.

I got to be friends with Jeremy, a 7-year-old who kept hanging out with us. We went to a gorgeous beach with waves and sea lions and turtles and hermit crabs.

The night was amazing. It was Mathis' birthday and we were all tired with restaurants so we made our own dinner at the hotel. Amazing pasta and grilled veggies prepared by Sky, Nora, Hannah, Katie, and Dan. We all pitched in and helped. Me, Elana, and Nic worked with Roberto on the brownies/cake and the french (Mathis and Victoria) made perfect French crepes. Mathis, Victoria, Nic, and I then chatted and played cards till the early hours of the morning. I think that I love it here. That was, sadly, our last night in the Galapagos, and I can honestly say I can't imagine ever being ready to leave these islands, the most gorgeous, exhausting, magical place in the world.

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