Day 1 didn't start out quite how I hoped, staffing issues on Delta resulted in me almost missing my connecting flight from Atlanta to my first stop, Quito. Luckily, I made my flight. My bag, however, did not. The seven of us on that flight landed in Quito at 11:30 pm local time. Quito is the highest capital in the world at 9,350 ft above sea level. Once we arrived, we met up with others from our group, had a quick dinner and headed to bed looking forward to getting to the islands.

We awoke early at our Quito hostel to catch our 9:00 am flight from Quito to Baltra Island. There's not much on Baltra besides the airport, cacti, land iguanas, and incredible views.  From the airport, we took a bus, to a shuttle boat that took us across a small channel to the island where we would spend the next 6 days; Santa Cruz.  Santa Cruz has a really interesting ecology, due to the volcanic past of the island, the highlands are cool and rainy while the lowlands are hot and dry seeing much more sun. We spent the first day getting to know our new home, getting to know each other and exploring. 

On Day 4, we set out to help the biosecurity agents eradicate the Giant African Snail, an extremely invasive and destructive species. These snails can lay 300 eggs at a time and lay eggs 4 times a year. We scavenged a grassy area for 4 hours and caught over 750! The agents have dogs specifically trained to sniff out the snails so they can be removed. He was much better at finding them then we were. 

After spending three days camping, we headed to a beautiful hostel in the coastal town of Puerto Ayora. As soon as we got there, we unloaded our bags, got in our swimsuits and headed to Parque National Galapagos.   We were able to see the tortoise breeding center, went on a tour to learn about the native flora and fauna before heading to a local snorkeling spot. My suitcase had finally arrived and it was brought to the hostel after we returned from our afternoon adventure. That night we went out to dinner in Puerto Ayora and witnessed many sea lions relaxing on the benches, sidewalks and piers.

Day 6 started with a 2 mile hike to a beautiful beach called Tortuga Bay, where we spent the morning sifting through sand with a sieve to remove microplastics. It's amazing how much plastic was found in just a cubic feet of sand! On Santa Cruz, July is no plastic month. After that, we had the afternoon to ourselves to swim, snorkel or just hang out at the beach. 

On our last day on Isabela we went snorkeling in one of the most beautiful places called Concha de Perla where I saw turtles, more parrotfish, angelfish and even a tiny purple octopus. We also took a trip to Las Tintoreras an islet off of Isabela where we saw blue footed boobies, sharks, rays, penguins and a coral nursery. There were also sea lions everywhere, they nap on anything; steps, benches, our bags (see below), one even chased someone up the stairs! 

In the late afternoon we headed back to our hostel for some time to work on our lessons or unit plans. A couple of us headed to a local coffee shop across the street for espressos and a slice of cake. We were able to really reflect on what we had experienced and how we were going to use it in our classrooms. That night, our whole group had a reflection on the beach after dinner about what we experienced and our ideas for bringing it back to the classroom. 

Once again we had an early rise, this time to head back to Puerto Ayora for our last full day on the Galapagos Islands. The morning was all our own, a few of us decided to take a taxi to the Lava Tunnels once we returned to our hostel, aptly named Lava House.  These tunnels were carved by the lava as it flowed from the volcanoes. That afternoon, our whole group went out to lunch and had a tour of the town and met with a local group of students called the MOLAS club who shared with us their goal and purpose of joining the club; to keep the Galapagos thriving in our changing world. 

Another early morning wake up but this time to head back to our respective homes. We made a quick stop at "las hermanas", two calderas formed millions of years ago by the volcanoes. We gave each other our certificate of completion while saying something memorable about the person who's certificate we had, while reflecting on our favorite moments. It was bittersweet and we all promised to be back one day because it was truly a magical place. We then boarded our bus, and then a boat, and eventually a plane to head back to Quito where we would all say our final goodbyes and head home.