One year ago today, Matt and I moved to Ecuador. It was a whirlwind: we traveled to the Galapagos Islands at the end of February 2015 for Matt’s job interview with the Tomas de Berlanga school, the school made him an offer and two weeks later we left Peru. After two weeks in the US getting together paperwork for our visas, we landed in Quito. A frustrating month of bureaucracy later, and we were on the Galapagos, ready to begin the next phase of our expat lives. One year later, we are back in Peru on vacation to visit some friends and see the sights we missed when we lived there. Who said you can never go back?
Truth be told, we preferred our life in Peru to our life in the Galapagos. As my friend Beth pointed out when we announced our move, we never even went on beach vacations but were moving to an island. We were captivated by the beauty and mystique of the Galapagos and forged ahead. We did not account for the isolation, intemperate climate, small town life and limited accessibility to well, everything. We thought we were prepared for these things (apart from the climate) after living in the the Andes of Peru, but island living is psychologically very different and the Galapagos are more remote than Cajamarca. Island living also seems to attract many interesting types of people and while we have made some excellent friends and met many smart and accomplished folks, there are a lot of quirky personalities that land on an island and never leave.
Despite its challenges, we have had amazing experiences in the past year. We’ve snorkeled with sharks (more times than I wanted, which would have been none), rays, penguins, turtles, eels and fish galore. We’ve seen blue footed and red footed boobies, albatrosses doing their mating dance, frigates, herons, tropicbirds, rare gulls, hawks, owls and Galapagos finches and mockingbirds. We have visited the giant tortoises in the highlands and hiked on lava fields and in lava craters. Daily we stroll past snoozing sea lions, seemingly prehistoric marine iguanas and bright red Sally Lightfoot crabs. We go to sleep with the sound of the surf as our lullaby.
We buy fresh seafood at the fish market and have learned the true meaning of “when your ship comes in” as we wait for the cargo ship to arrive to restock the grocery shelves. We coexist with geckos, teeny-tiny ants and spiders, and I kill huge cockroaches (almost) without a second thought. I will never get used to not flushing my toilet paper. We have become friendlier with strangers because sometimes all it takes to forge a connection is a Green Bay Packers shirt.
And our experiences are not limited to the islands. One day after our arrival in Quito we witnessed the Good Friday procession, which was a purple-clad sight to be seen. We experienced the equator twice – once by land and once by sea. We visited the Amazon jungle where the monkeys were my favorite although swimming in a lake full of caiman, anacondas, electric eels and piranhas makes a great story. We toured churches and museums in Quito, including the moving Guayasamin museum. We learned that land iguanas sleep in trees when we couldn’t find them the morning we went to Iguana Park in Guayquil and then thought to look up.
This year has not been the easiest, but it has brought new and unique experiences. Some day I will be sitting in a nursing home and the staff will be rolling their eyes and assuming I have lost it when I talk about when I lived on the Galapagos Islands.
Kerry On! 