New Zealand

     Our adventure in New Zealand started in Auckland on the very north tip of New Zealand.  Auckland seemed like an incredibly wealthy city because there were many massive oceanfront houses and exotic cars.  We spotted a Mclaren 12c, Lamborghnis, Ferraris and even a BMW i8.  I was very impressed with the food as everything was all organic and healthy.  Our apartment that we rented through Airbnb was quite spacious and about 200m from the ocean.  Basically all that we did while we were in Auckland was catch up on school, although we toured an aquarium, went sailing, and saw a movie.         

     After spending a week in Auckland we picked up a camper van that we we spent 17 days in.  When we arrived at the camper pickup site the manager showed us how to work everything.  Interestingly, it was a pretty cool set up, all of the seats, which folded into beds, were really soft and it seemed at first that there would be plenty of space.

      We started off with a two hour drive to Mata Mata, which is home to Hobbiton, where Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit were filmed.  Normally in movie sets the set designers build the set out of temporary materials and then destroy it when they are done filming.  However, in the case of the Lord of the Rings films there was a 1.5 second clip of a local mountain range that made it in by mistake (it was supposed to be edited out).  A few locals recongnized the mountain range and showed up on the property wanting a tour.  So the first tour of the set site began in a van with about four people.  After they were finished filming Lord of the Rings, the set was destroyed.  Wanting to film The Hobbit at the same location, Peter Jackson came back a few years later, but since where he had filmed before was private land, the owner announced, "Sure, you can build on my land, but you have to build the set out of permanent materials and transfer the rights to me so that I can give tours."  Peter Jackson agreed and built the set out of permanent materials so now there is a massive tour company giving tours.  

      After touring the hobbit holes we drove to Rotorua, which was one of my favorite places in New Zealand.  Here we rode luges, toured cultural villages, and went mountain biking.  Crazily, the luges didn't have a fence on the sides so if you went off the track you were a goner; however, the

luges were really fun and the tracks were awesome.  You could go crazy fast.  The cultural village was facinating, we were able to see the houses that the Maori people used to live in, the games they used to play, and the dances they used to preform.  We then had a massive buffet style dinner that was similar to Thanksgiving dinner, there was stuffing, turkey, pudding, cranberry sauce, lamb and much more.  In Rotorua we were even able to dig our own hot tub.  Digging a hole on the beach was really fascinating because Rotorua is volcanically active and so the hole would fill up with hot water like a hot tub.  We also did a canyon tour on zip lines.  

On our last day we went mountain biking, this was one of my favorite parts of all New Zealand.  The mountain bike park was huge and filled with massive redwood trees.   Biking has different levels just like a ski hill, this park had trails for all different levels of riders but the highest we went was an intermediate, which was plenty high for us.  The scenery was absolutely beautiful as there were snow-capped mountains everywhere.  The bikes in New Zealand are slightly different than in the US as the back brake is on the left-hand side instead of the right.  Despite this, I only went head over handlebars once.  After Rotorua we headed to Lake Taupo.  Here we stayed at a free campground on the lake, it was also really awesome because there was a free city-wide wifi.  We hadn't had wifi for about a week and it was really great to catch up.  The next day we went to Tongariro to hike the Trans-Alpine Crossing.  This trek was among the top ten one day treks in the entire world.  We had to hike through snow and mud.  It was really enjoyable; however, since we are following the sun we didn't bring that many warm clothes and as we were hiking through snow we were all really really cold.  Awesomely this is a satelite picture of the 12mi trek.  

After Tongariro we went to Wellington, the capital of New Zealand.  Here we went to the Weta Caves, where Peter Jackson works on his films.  We saw many of the original props from Lord of the Rings and many other films.  We also learned how they make many of their props.  We also went to many Gallipoli exhibits.  At the bottom of this post I'm including a paper that I wrote for a school assignment about Gallipoli.




South Island 

      After the North island we took a 3 hour fairy to the tip of the South Island.  We then drove the camper across really steep roads to a great campsite which was right on a lake.  After doing some school and spending the night here we drove to Abel Tasman National Park where we took a boat out to the park and then hiked back.  The hike was really cool because it was in a jungle/rainforest and there was also a really awesome beach.  Sadly we then drove to Christchurch where we dropped our beloved camper off.  Staying in an old jail house that was recently converted into a hostel was really a neat experience.  We spent one night in this unique hostel and then took the Trans-Alpine train to Greymouth where we picked up a rental car and drove to a tiny little town called Hokatika where we did a lot of school.  In Hokatika you can find jade in the river mouths so there are many jade shops.  We were even able to carve our own jade which was really fun.  When our two days in Hokatika were up we then drove to Franz-Josef Glacier. 

(The Tranz-Alpine train)

In Franz-Josef we stayed in a really big jungle house.  It was in the middle of the rainforest and had 5 bedrooms.  We also went to a kiwi breeding lab where we saw a NZ kiwi for the first time.  The next day we took a helicopter up onto the glacier. This was my favorite part of Franz-Josef and was awesome as I had never been in a helicopter before.  

 After staying for two nights in Franz-Josef Glacier we drove to Queenstown, the adrenaline capital of the world.  Obviously, Queenstown was my favorite part of New Zealand, we did so many crazy things here including riding in a jet boat, bungy jumping, mountain biking, and canyoning.  Canyoning is basically where you almost freeze yourself to death, jump off of waterfalls, and go down really fast rivers.  Despite how cold the water was it was really fun.  The scariest part was probably when the guide pushed me down a 20ft waterfall and I couldn't see what was beneath me. 

The next day we did some school and then went rafting.  The rafting was designed for a family and so they were only grade 1 and 2 rapids but it was still fun.  

That night we went on a jet boat ride.  JET BOATS ARE SO COOL.  They can do 360's, ride on 3in of water (they weigh about 3 tons), and are really fast.  The one that we rode in had 2 V8 engines.  

The next day we went mountain biking.  The mountain biking was not as scenic as Rotorua, but it was way more intense.  It was all down-hill so we would ride a gondola up and ride down.  

We also went hang gliding, we had to schedule it 3 times before the wind conditions were right, but when we got up there it was so much fun.  The "driver" made it swoop and dive but always as we were about to hit the ground we leveled out.  Finally, on our last day we went bungee jumping.  Jumping was insane.  I really didn't even think about it when the supervisor counted to 3.  I didn't even look down, I just jumped, I thought that I was going to be torn apart while I was falling, and right as I was about to hit the water, the cord caught me.  This was probably the craziest thing that I have ever done.  

Afterwards, we then drove to Milford Sound, this was a giant fjord.  It is one of the few places in the world that has black coral, which is usually only found in very deep places.  Interestingly, for some odd reason, the black coral is actually white.  We also saw seals, penguins, and some people saw a whale.  Also in Milford Sound are birds called keas (pronounced key), these are big parrots, who will land on your car and try to eat your food.  We never had one land on our car but we saw some people with them on their cars.  

After Milford sound we drove to Fairlie where we were going to spend a week working on a farm.  This was a blast, we got to de-tail lambs, bassicaly we would pick them up and the farmer and his son would give them a vaccine and use a gas scissor to chop their tails off (they burned them off with the gas).  

(That was what my shirt looked like at the end of the day)

We also did a lot of weeding and had to get up every morning to feed the animals.  I got to feed calves, sheep, a baby lamb, and pigs.  

We also got to drive their Polaris which was really fun.

I ended up really enjoying the farm and learned a lot in the process.  The next day we drove to Christchurch where we flew to Australia.  All in all, I really liked New Zealand, it is very green and has many rainforests.  One of my favorite parts was that basically no matter where you were, there were always mountains.  Someday I would like to go back to New Zealand.  

MY GALOPILLI PAPER:

     World War One was an incredibly bloody war in which many lives were lost in a struggle between life and death.  The war started because the Archduke of Austria-Hungary was assassinated by Bosnian terrorists believed to be supported by Serbia.  This led Austria-Hungary to declare war on Serbia, which was defended by Russia.  Meanwhile, tension was brewing because Germany was afraid as they were surrounded on all sides by countries with powerful armies and because they greedily wanted more land.  Germany's thinking was that France had many powerful forts bordering Germany, but tiny Belgium only had three forts and they were of an old and weak design.  Therefore if they could conquer Belgium then they could go through the border of France and Belgium, since it had no forts, and get to Paris that way.  Therefore, Germany attacked Belgium, quickly overcoming their three measly forts.   

     Since Great Britain was allies with Belgium they declared war on Germany, however, they were not an immediate threat as they had to get through the English Channel and march quite a distance.  The moment Germany broke through Belgium, Russia also declared war on Germany and attacked from the east side.  This meant that Germany also declared war on Russia and had to send at least half of it's military over to fight Russia, which greatly slowed their progress on the eastern front.  Since Serbia was protected by Russia, Austria-Hungary joined Germany in attacking Russia.  Europe was rapidly dividing into the Allies, which included France, Great Britain, and Russia, and there were also the Central Powers, which consisted of Germany and Austria-Hungary.  These were the main events that led up to the brutal beginning of World War One.

      Turkey sided with Germany and this was the catalyst that pulled the Australia and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZACS) into the catastrophic war.  Both Australia and New Zealand were colonies of Britain, therefore if Britain went to war it was their duty to help out.  Turkey was closest to Australia and New Zealand so naturally these two nations went off to fight the Turks.  Britain also sent some of their troops to help deal with the Turks.  These three forces made it to Gallipoli, off the coast of Turkey, in April of 1915 and were ready to begin the bloody battle.  

      In Gallipoli the fighting was horrendous, there were barbed wire fences, and if a soldier dared to venture out of his trench he was dead meat.  There were machine guns everywhere.  The Turk's snipers really took their toll on the ANZACS as they were constantly picking their men off.  There were very few doctors and so dead men were lying around everywhere unburied.  Many soldiers complained in their journals that the stench was almost unbearable.  Eventually a truce was called because of the smell and both sides were permitted several hours to bury their dead men in No Man's Land.  After thousands of ANZACS had died, they were finally forced to retreat because they had so few men that they could not hold off the Turkish attacks anymore.  The battle of Gallipoli was a total massacre with tens of thousands dying on both sides, the terrain was inhospitable, and the entire battle was a massive bloodbath.  

      Before traveling to New Zealand, I had no idea that New Zealand or Australia were involved in WWI let alone the effect on New Zealand that had catastrophic consequences with 10% of it's population being lost.  The percentage of New Zealand's men that were lost in the war, compared to the population of people in New Zealand at that time was greater than any other nation who fought in the battle of Gallipoli.  In New Zealand there are many exhibits dedicated to the battle of Gallipoli.  Peter Jackson himself has donated and made many statues honoring these men as it was also a personal event for him, as his British grandfather fought at Gallipoli and later moved his family to New Zealand because he was so impressed with the New Zealanders who fought at this battle .  It is truly disheartening how many loved ones were lost during the battle of Gallipoli.  New Zealand certainly played it's part in WWI and typically doesn't get the recognition that it deserves as it seems the effects of this war were felt the most by this nation and it was devastating to them how many men were lost.  Learning about this battle as part of WWI and seeing the Gallipoli exhibits at both the Anzac Memorial and the TePapa Museum in Wellington has truly impacted my understanding of New Zealands part in WWI.  

Cusco and Machu Pichu

Cusco is a city right in the middle of the Andes mountains at an altitude of 11,000ft above sea level.  The place where we first stayed basically sucked.  We each had our own bed, however there wasn't much of a common area and the people who owned the place had dogs and cats.  Their dog named Chester was the cutest little golden retriever puppy that I have ever seen, however if you got him excited, he would tear up anything in his way including pillows and your pants.  There was pet fur all over and every morning for breakfast we were served a drink called Coca Tea, that I did not care for at all, but it was supposed to help with altitude.  The people who owned the place were as nice as could be, however the place itself wasn't all that sanitary.  When our neighbor from MN arrived we finally decided we'd had enough and we moved to a really nice hotel.

Cusco is a fascinating city because much of the architecture is original Incan stone.  Also there are tons of cultural markets where they sell Alpaca clothing.  Alpaca is a huge industry in Cusco and alpaca fiber makes very nice clothing.  It is warmer than wool although you don't sweat.  Alpaca's are similar to llamas.  You can also bargain for cheaper prices, which I think is very enjoyable.  Cusco also has delicious food.  They sell guinea pig, which is considered a delicacy to eat, although I didn't have a chance to try it.  One day we did some touristy stuff and went to see an Incan agricultural area and some salt mines.

Finally the night before we went to Machu Picchu we met our guide Saul (pronounced S-a-oo-l) and he gave us a briefing of what we were going to be doing.  The next morning we got up at 5am and headed out in a bus to Machu Picchu.  When we got there we learned that we were going to have to hike an extra 4k because the regular road was closed for construction.  The first day was relatively easy and we didn't have much difficulty.  Lunch was an awesome 3 course meal complete with table and all.  Afterwards they let us have a half our nap before continuing.  It really was glamping (glamorous camping).  When we reached our campsite for the night we passed out.  We got to sleep on a pad, air matress, and sleeping bag, so it wasn't uncomfortable at all.  The second day was definitly the hardest and we hiked over 13,500ft.  We skipped lunch so that we could keep going but it was really difficult.  Almost all of it was uphill, and the summit was amazing as it was above the clouds and almost half way done with our journey.  It was also the highest I've ever been and it was enjoyable to have a half hour break and eat beef jerky.  By the end of the day my legs were practically dead.  Day three was easy and awesome until dinner.  We hiked through a cloud forest and had the coolest campsite ever.

Sadly that night we all got very sick, a combination of food poisoning and altitude sickness.  I threw up 15 times in three hours and by morning I still wasn't better.  The fourth day we all had to stumble down a slippery mountain slope for three hours with practically no strength left before we made it to Machu Picchu.  My first glimpse as I passed through the Sungate was amazing as we were actually higher than Machu Picchu and we had to hike down to get to it.

Instead of staying to explore, we took the bus to the bottom where we then walked to the hostel that we were staying in.  We took a hot shower, had some awesome pizza and then went to bed.  The next morning we took a bus back up to Machu Picchu where we had our formal tour.  No one actually knows how or why Machu Picchu was built, and what we see today is actually thirty percent restored after the original strutcture collapsed in places.  I learned that Yale University has many artifacts from Hiram Bingham's expedition, despite a deal that they made with the Peruvian government, and they won't give any of them back.

Frankly the pictures just don't do it justice.  Machu Picchu is INCREDIBLE!  It is gigantic and all of the stone walls are amazing.  After Machu Picchu we took an awesome panoramic train back down to the bottom of the mountain, where we then took a bus back to Cusco.  We stayed one more night in Cusco before heading back to LA for three days!!!

Iquitios

Iquitos is a big city in the middle of the Amazon.  It's claim to fame is that it is the largest city that you can't drive too.  Literally there are no roads going to it.  You have to fly or boat there.  Here we met up with a missionary couple, whose names are Osmar and Nicole.  They run a a kid's club called "Sunshine Kids Club," they are also partnered with River Valley Church (our church at home).  We were here for a week and we served for five days and took two days off to do touristy things.

When we first arrived we met up with Osmar, went out to eat and then went to our guest house that we were staying at.  When we first rang the doorbell at the guest house, no one came, so we just went back to Osmar's house.  We later figured out that they didn't know we were coming, so we thought that we were going to have to find a different place to stay until they told us that they had room.  Our lodgings were okay; however, Iquitos was so hot and our rooms didn't have AC, which made it feel like a sauna inside of our rooms.  Serving at Osmar's kids club was really awesome.  In the really poor town that the kids club was located in, it floods for 6 months every year.  This means that they have to redo/rebuild their house every three years.  All of the houses are made out of wood because the people in the town cannot afford more expensive materials that would last longer.  We spent the majority of our time helping Osmar rebuild his kid's club. This was really fun because we were ripping up boards and putting new ones in.  One day we even brought our speaker and played Toby Mac while we worked.  Along with our family, there were two women from Guatemala who came to help out as well.  One of them was a dentist and she let me be her assistant for one day.  I got to prepare needles and pliers and stuff like that.

For our first touristy day we went to the local market and saw a lot of local food items including crocodile, cow heart, piranhas, etc.

a piranha

crocodile

For our other touristy day we took a boat out to a few islands and got to hold monkeys, parrots, sloths, kinkajous, and anacondas.

One day they were having youth group at the kid's club and so we went and sung songs in Spanish and then there was a short talk afterwards.  It was a lot like Castaway Club YL.  Overall our time in Iquitos was really fun and it was super cool to see Osmar's faith in action.  He had no source of income and yet still ran this kid's club while having a family.  It was cool to see how he had to rely on God 100% of the time.

Los Angeles

LA was just plain awesome!  We stayed at an Airbnb place 2 blocks from the beach with our Grandparents.  We got to have some good American food including Chick-Fil-A!!! We were even able to flush the toilet paper, drink the water, and have a hot shower.  We were able to ride bikes again and go surfing.  I couldn't believe the amount of sports cars in LA!  We saw Lamborghinis, Ferraris, Lotuses, and we stopped pointing out Tesla's because we saw so many.  We even saw a velvet Bentley!  After coming from South America, where there are no sports cars, it was slightly overwhelming.  We even got to go to Hillsong, which was awesome because it was similar to our church at home.

Summary of Quito and our week in the Galapagos

Summary of Quito:

      I am going to sum up Quito because we have been super busy and have not had enough time or consistent wifi to keep up with the blog.  We have stayed in our apartment that we rented and have spent most of our time doing school as we are trying to get three weeks worth done in one week.  

Here are the things that we did in addition to school:      

      On Saturday we went to a college soccer game, this was super cool and it was a nice stadium.  People even brought drums and whistles to support their team.  On Sunday we crossed the Equator.  At the equator museum we learned that the actual Equator is 5km wide, and the actual 0 degrees latitude moves around throughout the year. 

On Monday we went on a free walking tour of the old city in Quito. This was very educational and informative. We learned about many museums although we didn't go inside of them on the walking tour.

      Another defining factor of Quito is the malls.  They have all sorts of shops including KFC, Cinnabon, Nike, Adidas, and Samsung.  When we asked the locals what was cool to see in Quito all of them said that the malls were awesome, however it is kind of pointless for us to go and waste our time in the mall when we cannot buy things because we don't have room in our backpacks.  We also met with the Ecuadorian YL (Younglife) director.  He had an amazing story and we learned that he had started YL in Ecuador and had been calling it Young Life without even knowing that the real organization of YL existed.  He even ran it the same way that YL is run.  He has now partnered with and officially started YL in Ecuador. That basically sums up our week in Quito.  

9/4/15

Today we woke up at 3am to head to the Galapagos!!!  Our taxi came at 4am and we all piled into the van and drove an hour to the airport.  At the airport we had to go through special Galapagos security and fill out papers and stuff like that.  Once we had finished checking in and going through security, we made it to our gate and had to wait about an hour before boarding.  It was only a two and a half hour flight to the Galapagos, once we arrived I was just in awe.  We cleared customs and then had to wait 4 hours for the rest of the people in our boat to arrive.  During this time we got some breakfast (it was only about 9am) and played a bit of soccer on the sidewalk while we waited.  When the rest of the group arrived we loaded our stuff into a truck that would take our bags to the boat.  We then went on a ferry to get to the next island and started seeing wildlife right away.

After the ferry we hopped onto a bus and drove for about a 1/2 hour and arrived at a privately owned ranch where many of the Galapagos giant tortoises were.  We had lunch at the ranch's restaurant, put on rubber boots (because it was muddy and wet), and then went out to see the tortoises.  The tortoises were incredible, they weren't even scared of you, they let you get right up to them and didn't seem to have any fear at all.  It was amazing!

After seeing and looking at the tortoises for about an hour we then went to the Charles Darwin Station. I was honestly not that impressed by this, it was basically seeing the same tortoises that we just saw except for the fact that they were not as big and they were in captivity which took away some of the meaning.  After the station we went to get on the boat so that we could sail overnight to the Island of Floreana.  The boat was amazing and incredibly nice.  It was a positive change compared to Guatemala.  We had an awesome fish dinner, were briefed on what tomorrow was going to have in store and then went to bed.  Because it is a yacht you can feel the rocking of the ocean, which I really enjoyed and thought had a hammock effect (although it did make some people feel sea sick).  

9/5/15 

      I set my alarm for 6:15am, although it failed to go off, I ended up getting up at about 6:45am.  We had breakfast at 7am and it was delicious, we had eggs, toast, granola, cereal, yogurt, and jam.  We then had about a half hour to get ready before we headed out in the pangas (dinghys).  Today we went to the island of Floreana.  When we arrived the dinghy did a 180 degree turn and just let the waves pull us into the beach.  We had only walked a short ways when we saw four flamingos in a lagoon.  Sadly, since my go-pro has no zoom and the flamingos were a far ways off, I was not able to get a picture, however, one of the guys who was on our boat and from Australia had an awesome camera with a huge 400mm telephoto lens and was able to get this photo and he generously let me use it.

Afterwards we saw a Floreana Lava Lizard, 

and then we saw a finch.  

So far I have only seen 3 animals but I have already been astounded by how little fear of man these animals possess.  It is incredible that they let you get inches from them and stick your camera in their faces, but yet they don't run away.  After this we went to hands down the coolest beach that I have ever been to. 

 The water was crystal clear, the sand was super fine and bright white, and we were surrounded by lava rocks that were covered in Sally light-foot crabs.  The Sally light-foot crabs were amazing and had very vibrant colors, that stuck out on the black lava rocks.

Sadly, you couldn't swim at this beach because there were stingrays that buried themselves under the sand and you wouldn't want to step on the poison barb inside their tail.  After all of this we headed back to our boat, which was named the Beluga, to go snorkeling.  When we were on the pangas heading back to the Beluga, we saw an awesome sea lion on the platform of the boat.  This picture is one of my favorites from the Galapagos and I even made it my wallpaper.  

I love that photo.  We had about a half hour until we would head out to Devil's Crown to go snorkeling. The snorkeling was incredible.  The water was so clear and we saw so many fish.  Here are some photos that I was able to get. 

see if you can find the fish that is hiding in this photo

 

After snorkeling we had a half hour drive to a different part of Floreana where there is a "post office" and a cave.  This was not a normal post office because you had no idea how long it was going to take for your letter to get delivered.  This was because every time a tourist group arrived here they had to look through all of the letters, if there were any from their state or country it was their opportunity to take at least a few of them back and mail them.  We even found one from our city in MN where we live, we grabbed this one and will hand deliver it when we get back in a year.  Here is a picture of the box where people deposit their letters:

After the post office we went into a dark lava cave that was three stories deep and had sea water in it. Afterwards we headed back to the boat where the captain let us jump from the second story.  Again, this photo is not mine, the man from Australia took this photo for us.  We swapped some photos because he and his wife wanted some of my underwater photos/videos as well.  

After this we began our long ride to the island of Isabela where we would go tomorrow.  

9/6/15

Today my alarm actually succeeded in going off and waking me up!  I got up at about 6:15am to do devos.  After breakfast we headed out to hike Volcano Sierra Negra on the island of Isabela.  The weather today was foggy and not raining, but there was a fine mist.  At the dock we saw a few sea lions and iguanas.  After careful consideration of all the possible animals, I would have to say that the sea lion is my favorite because it is so playful and agile in the water. 

We then hopped onto an open air bus, the landscape was incredible because it changed from desert to tropical rainforest almost instantly.  After a 45 minute bus ride we made it to the volcano, and when we arrived at the top this was the incredible view that we saw.

Supposedly this crater has the second largest diameter of any crater/volcano in the world.  However, as you saw in the photo, we didn't get to see it.  After we had hiked back down and rode the bus back to the docks, we had a rest period on the boat, and then we went to a nearby beach where we relaxed until about 6:30, when it was time to go back to the boat for dinner.  After dinner I worked on photos, journaled, and then went to bed.

9/7/15

      Today I also woke up at 6:15am to do my devos and have breakfast before heading out.  At 8am we headed out in the dinghies, and landed on Isabela again, but at a different site today.  All you could see was volcanic rock, as far as the eye could see.  

There were certain lagoons that looked very out of place against the dry desert-like lava rock.  I call it a lagoon because it is salt water not fresh water.

In this lagoon we saw a white-cheeked pintail.  We observed many of these in the lagoons.  They are similar to a duck but can also be found in the ocean.  Now again, I didn't take this photo.

Afterwards we found a lagoon with a shark in it.

And we then took the dinghies to see some marine iguanas, and penguins.  

We then returned to the ship to go snorkeling.  Today we were after turtles and we saw many!!

After snorkeling we had lunch, a 4 hour break, and then headed to the mangrove swamp.  The mangrove swamp was simply incredible, it has been one of the favorite places that I have been to so far.  It was so peaceful and quiet, and the water was the clearest water that I have ever seen, it looked like it had been filtered.  We saw lots more turtles and even a few stingrays.  After the mangroves we had dinner and then went to bed.  

9/8/15

Today we once again went through the daily Galapagos morning routine and then headed out to our first site.  After about only a minute or two of walking we saw a huge land iguana.  

The iguanas were bright yellow because it was mating season and the females pick the iguana with the brightest yellow.  We saw a few more along the way and looked for tortoises but didn't see any.

We then headed back to the boat and started our two hour commute to the next site.  On the way we saw humpback and minky whales, although I was not able to get a photo because they were a ways off.  After lunch we went snorkeling for two hours and this was by far the best snorkel of the entire trip.  We saw so many things, I even got two awesome videos of a penguin and a cormorant.     Here are the photos:

After snorkeling we went to Darwin's Lake.  This is actually an optical illusion because it looks like the lake is higher than the ocean, so therefore Charles Darwin assumed that it would be freshwater; however the lake is actually saltwater and the same height as the ocean, therefore, it should be called a lagoon.

After Darwin's Lake we had dinner and went to bed.

9/10/15

Once again we went through the same morning routine and then headed off to the island of Fernandina.  We saw a sea lion and a penguin on the way and then we landed.  The island was 100% volcanic lava rock.  Isabela had a lot of volcanic rock but it was not 100% volcanic.  After about 30 seconds we saw a huge colony of marine iguanas and all of them were sneezing salt.  The iguanas were incredibly stinky and they basically laid on each other and went to the bathroom on the other ones all day long.  

Afterwards we saw a baby sea lion that had just been born.  Our guide, Juan, said that it was just a few hours old, it was even still wet.  

We then found another colony of marine iguanas and shortly afterwards we found 3 sea lion pups that had been left while their mothers went to look for food.  These were super cute and wanted to play, they even started practicing their poses for us.

We then went back to the boat to get ready for snorkeling.  On the snorkel we saw a few more turtles.  We also saw a playful sea lion.

And perhaps the largest puffer fish in recorded history, you can even see its spikes.

After this we had a two hour boat ride to the next snorkel spot.  This snorkel spot wasn't as cool and we didn't see anything worth noting.  We then sailed to the little island of Bartholomew where we climbed 365 steps up to a lighthouse.  

9/11/15

Today was our last day in the Galapagos.  We got up at 5am to go to a tiny little island where we would see magnificent frigate-birds and blue-footed boobies mating.  When the frigate-birds mate they have a massive red pouch that they blow up to try and impress the females.  

When the blue-footed boobies mate there is one female and two or three males, they all try to impress the female with their blue feet, and the female chooses the male with the brightest blue feet.  

After all of this we took the dinghies back to the yacht where we cruised for a half hour until we got to the island of Baltra where our plane would take off.  

Summary:

      Overall, the Galapagos Islands were an incredible experience that I will never forget.  It was amazing to see how little fear the animals possesed.  You could probably touch them and they wouldn't care.  The snorkeling was amazing and we saw a huge diversity of marine life.  Our boat was awesome and the staff was great.  I had an amazing experience and will remember this for the rest of my life.