Andino y Pepito

NOTE: I just got to upload some images so check out previous posts everynow and then for more pics. Hopefully, i will get a lot of it done tonight, because tomorrow we are camping out and i won't be back in contact for a day or 2.
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QUITO- GUAYQUIL-SAN CRISTOBAL


Pulled into the Galapagos today! There was a very breif orientation, and then free time until our host families came to pick us up. I sprinted straight across the street from the universidad and into the ocean.

There are sea lions (lobos), crazy crabs (seballos [sp?]), and lizards all over the beach. A sea lion swam right between me and another guy about 6 inches away. It took only about half an hour of exploring the beach to get my first experience of sprinting down the beach from an angry male sea lion that i had accidently angered.

The crabs here can also hop, which freaked me out when i was stranded on a rock near the beach that was slowly being covered with crabs! Speaking of crabs, i noticed some of the local kids walking right up to the crabs and just ripping them in half with their hands and teeth. It kind of freaked me out, so i started talking to them to figure out what they were doing. They would take the crab bits and toss them into the shallow part of the ocean and let the waves drag the crab chunks over the sand, then creepy white bug/crustacean things would pop out of the sand to eat the crab and the kids would grab the creepy white things and eat those.

This is also where another fantastic blunder happened in my journey into the language of spanish. I asked the kids if the crabs pinched using my made-up spanish cognate of "pincher" to communicate the idea while also using exaggerated hand gestures, but the phrase seemed to just freak out the kids on the beach a bit. I later relayed the tale to a girl in my group, Carol, who informed me that pincher was closer to the F-word in english than "to pinch."

I got to snap a few quick pics of some of the amazing fish here, but i am sure that wildlife pics will be greatly expanded upon in the next 2 weeks.

Our host families then came to pick us up, and i was lucky enough to be the only guy from the group who got to be with a host family on his own! So it is just me and Pepe and Fabiola and Pepito Jr. and only one of us speaks english (me!). My spanish name is Andres, and my dimuniative, cute name is Andino. I played a lot with the little baby Pepito before we went out to the restraunt, Calypso, and took a tour of the city. There is a beautiful little plaza overlooking the bay, with hundreds of sea lions everywhere!

Here are views from the back yard of the house i am staying at. (YOU CAN ALSO TAKE STEPS RIGHT UP TO THE ROOF!)

Tommorow I am going to jog the length of the island at 6 AM, visit the Galapagierra, and spend the night camping on an island!