I Love Boobies! (Adventures in the Galapagos)

(This is a very long entry) After 8 days on a catamaran in the Galapagos where to start? I guess I will start with some facts. Did you know that the population of the Galapagos is over 28,000 people? There are 12 islands and Ecuadorian people live on 5 of them. The name Galapagos comes from the Spanish word galapago which means saddle. So when the first explorers saw the giant tortoises with their shells that look like saddles, they named the islands. The Galapagos islands are a hot spot just like Hawaii and they have a ton of active volcanoes and lava fields.

Here is a map of the Galapagos. We arrived on Baltra island which is just north of Santa Cruz. We took the northern route and visited Santa Cruz, Isabela, Fernadina, Santiago and Genovesa islands.

There were 7 other travelers on our boat. 2 couples from London, 1 couple from Amsterdam and one post grad from Canada. We felt really lucky with our group as we all got along very well. We also loved our very patient and informative guide Diego.

The first day we spent on Santa Cruz at Puerto Ayora where over half of the population of the Galapagos lives (this would be our only stop to a populated island). The economy of Santa Cruz is 80% tourism, 10% fishing and 10% agriculture. We took the dingy/panga to shore and took a small bus around the island and it felt like any other small town on mainland Ecuador. The landscape was green and lush but most of the grasses and trees had been introduced to this island. We drove to a farm further from shore and within 40 seconds of walking with Diego we saw our first giant tortoise looking like a dinosaur in a pond.

Here is a picture for scale.

Later that day we learned more about the giant tortoises at the Charles Darwin Research Center. There used to be 300,000 giant tortoises on the islands but after pirates used them for a good source of protein at sea and the introduction of cats, horses, dogs, fire ants and goats to the islands their population fell to 26,000. In the 60's/70's reintroduction efforts started at the Charles Darwin Research Center and brought back some populations that were almost extinct (like the sub-species from Espanola island). Today there are 30,000 giant tortoises and their populations are growing thanks to the breeding programs and the eradication of wild goats from many of the islands.

Marine iguana catching a ride on his friend. In Puerto Ayora.

Baby turtles at the research center

Mom and Kari with a cool a prickly pear cactus in the background that grows what looks like a tree trunk to avoid getting eaten by the giant tortoises and land iguanas.

The next day we disembarked at Punta Moreno on Isabella island. The landscape here was completely different and it kind of felt like we were landing on the moon. We walked over a lava field which had no vegetation except for cacti. Then all of a sudden we came upon a brackish lake and in it were 7 flamingos! They were un-naturally pink (I don't think I have ever seen live flamingos) and it was just shocking to see a little lake filled with flamingos surrounded by a desolate black lava field.

This was the one time (except for when we saw owls) that we weren't able to get 2 feet from the animals without them caring at all. So excuse how tiny the flamingos look.

Then we went on a panga ride and saw tons of marine iguanas and penguins (!).

Boarding the panga

Marine iguanas

Tiny Galapagos penguin!

In the afternoon we made another landing on Isabella island. There we saw about 10 more giant tortoises as well as one hidden land iguana which are much more colorful than the marine iguanas.

Here is a land iguana.

That night we were docked in Tagus cove and we took an early morning walk over Darwin's lake. We saw some of his famous finches as well as super friendly sea lions. We kept hiking up until we were at a look out point that looked over another lava field.

Darwin's finches

The whole group: Mom, Kari, me, Nick, Rinske, Simon, Sarah, Tom, Leah and Eli with the lava field behind us.

Shortly after arriving back on the boat, Leah spotted something in the distance. It was at least 4 orca whales! We jumped in the panga and followed them out of the bay.

Here is the best shot I managed to get of them from the boat. It was really cool to watch that many orca whales surfacing together.

The days continued along with a walk in the morning and afternoon, snorkeling once but usually twice a day, delicious food on the boat and mid day siestas.

While snorkeling, we saw white tipped reef sharks, spotted eagle rays, sea turtles, penguins jetting by, sea lions, a lobster. It was a weird experience to have someone yell SHARK! and then swim as fast as I could towards them!

There were tons of sea lion encounters. Almost everyday we would stroll pass a snoozing sea lion, see some juveniles playing in the sand or water or see a sea lion swim by. Even though I have seen sea lions a ton from a distance they were probably my favorite thing in the Galapagos because they are so playful and fun to watch. Here are some of my favorite sea lion pics.

Sea lion pup. SO CUTE!

This picture is showing how close we were to the sea lions.

Sleeping

OK. I am going to try and wrap up this post because it is getting out-of-control long. Last type of animal that we saw a lot of: birds! and best of all boobies!

Let's talk about boobies.

Apparently the Spanish called them bobos because their funny colors and the silly dance that they do in the mating season reminded them of clowns. Then the English changed this to boobies. There are 3 types of boobies on the Galapagos. The red footed, the nazca and the most famous blue footed boobies. I really liked all types of boobies and could not even pick a favorite if you forced me to.

Here are my best boobie shots!

Red footed

Nazca boobie and chick

Here is another cool type of bird. The frigate bird inflates the red sack at their chin in order to attract a mate. Diego said the bigger the sack, the better.

This was our home for the duration of the trip. The Nemo II.

Jumping picture on a lava field!

Me and a seal on the hottest day ever.

And finally, the whole group with a friendly sea lion (still on the hottest day ever).

Well, I could go on and on with this post. If you have any questions or want to see any other pictures just email me. I have videos too!

Last clinic week - Adolescent clinic

My fourth week of clinic was spent at Clinica de Adolescentes. I am working with Dra. Carrera and a doctor named Junior (both pediatricians) and two obstetrician students (Nancy and Maria). The adolescent clinic is located adjacent to the maternal hospital and consists of 4 large rooms with 8 beds each filled with teenage moms (any woman 18 years or younger spends her postpartum days in this area of the hospital). Starting at 8 am we round on all the newborns. I am doing newborn exams galore! Testing baby reflexes, hips, hearts, lungs, fontanelles and checking all the babies for jaundice. It is great getting so much exposure to newborns.

All of the teen moms get a session with a psychologist, gynecologist (for birth control counseling) and they have classes about motherhood. It is sad because some of the teen moms are 13. They look like babies themselves and now they have a baby. It is also sad because about 50% of the girls do not have the father of the baby in the picture. Apparently, teenage pregnancy is on the rise in Ecuador and it is fueled by the lack of sex-education in schools, the catholic influences that discourage birth control and some other cultural norms that take most, if not all, of the responsibility off of the men when a baby is born.

During rounds, if a baby looks particularly jaundiced for the number of hours old it is, Junior would get a blood sample. Then after morning rounds we would move to the outpatient clinic and see about 10-15 patients. Well-child visits or sick visits for children of teen moms.

I really liked the adolescent clinic and I am glad that it exists for all of the teen moms of Quito.

Here is Junior, Nancy and maria in the outpatient exam room. It is funny how I have not taken a single picture on any other U.S. rotation but in Ecuador I am shameless and take pictures every week. Haha. Aren't they cute?

Tonight my mom and Kari arrive and I will see them tomorrow! I can't wait. And we leave for the Galapagos on Sunday!

Out and about with Juan Carlos

Our Spanish teacher, Juan Carlos, has been introducing us to Ecuadorian food from day one. Last week we went for ceviche:

And then he invited Kibby and I to his house for cuy (roasted guinea pig). Guinea pig is a traditional Ecuadorian dish and dates back to Inca times. We were completely honored by this invitation. He lives with his mom, wife and 2 kids aged 2 and 12. He said that his mom would be making the guinea pig.

He picked us up at the Spanish school and took us by bus to his house. Before the cuy, his mother Rosa served a delicious soup that is usually eaten at holy week called Fanesca. It had a corn base with beans, tuna, hominy, fried plantains, tiny empenadas, salsa, egg, cheese and corn. It was DELICIOUS!

Kibby,me and Juan Carlos enjoying roasted guinea pig.

Here is the cuy. You can see the tiny claws. It tasted like roasted chicken. The skin was a little thicker than chicken skin. All in all a delicious meal and a fun experience too!

Week #4 IESS and the coast

I started clinic week #3 in the hospital IESS which stands for Instituto de Ecuador de Social Seguridad. This is the hospital for all citizens who get health care through their jobs. So they pay into the health care system (like Medicare) and then they get health care through the designated social seguridad hospitals. According to one of the medical students, 20% of the population is in this system. The hospital is enormous and takes up an entire city block and it took me at least 15 minutes and asking 5 security guards to find the gynecology department. The hospital is filled with people waiting in lines leading to different doors and halls all labeled with every possible specialty: oncology, cardiology, rheumatology, dermatology etc. There are clocks everywhere but none of them are set to the right time! For some reason, the whole place felt kind of communist to me. I’m not even sure what this means but it just did.

It was hard to take a picture of the entire hospital because it was so big. Here is an attempt:

Here is one of the entrances

The facilities were all very nice and were much more modern than Hospital Maternidad (public hospital). I met Dr. Salazar and he was scheduled for 3 gynecology surgeries in the morning which I watched. One hysteroscopy (looking in the uterus with a scope) and 2 diagnostic laparoscopies (looking at the reproductive organs through the abdomen).

In the afternoons I continue to have Spanish classes. Spanish is coming along. Good signs: I can talk in past tense! My mind no longer floods with Swedish/Norwegian words when I am trying to say something . I think my patient interviewing skills have gotten tons better during the past 4 weeks.

The next day Dr. Salazar had clinic. IESS has electronic medical records! He saw about 10 patients for post surgery visits, surgery consults or for regular well-woman exams much like my preceptor in California.

The week continued with more surgery, colposcopy clinic and another day of regular clinic.

This weekend, Kibby and I traveled to the coastal town of Atacames which is just south of Esmeraldas. When we exited the bus we were flooded with tropical, humid air. The town of Atacames is a beach destination for foreigners and Ecuadorians and has lots of bars lining the beach.

Here is the sunset on the night we arrived

We didn’t have the best weather. Cloudy Saturday and a little rain on sunday. But you can see that this is not deterring any of the Ecuadorians from enjoying the beach. (It was still really warm and we got pretty burned through the clouds)

Apparently Ecuadorians eat ceviche (uncooked seafood marinated in lemon juice and seasoned with onions and herbs) for breakfast on the coast! I opted for the fried fish and bolón (which I thought would be ham/bologne but turned out to be a ball of corn filled with cheese). Very delicious.


But how the Ecuadorians love to dance! On the beach, in the bars at 2 pm, into the wee hours of the morning, they were constantly dancing. Old, young it didn’t matter. It was so cute and it made me wish that my culture had more of a love for dancing.

Here is a banana and fruit shop in Atacames. We saw tons of these on the way from the bus as well.

We had a relaxing weekend on the beach, ate well and danced and even went to a karaoke bar where our biggest success was summer nights from grease followed by a backstreet boys song.

Mindo - Zip lining, Chocolate factory and a search for Toucans!

This weekend Kibby and I left Friday afternoon for the town of Mindo. Located 2 hours by bus outside of Quito in a cloud forest, Mindo is a great way to quickly escape the bustle of Quito and join a small, tourist friendly, slightly hippy town with tons to do.

Here is the main drag of Mindo.

So what is a cloud forest? I had the same question. According to wikipedia it is a tropical or sub-tropical moist forest characterized by persistent low level cloud cover usually at the canopy level. I tried multiple times to adequately capture the cloud forest but I don't feel like any of the pictures did it justice. But here are a few attempts.

We arrived and found a hostel that was very cute and homey and run by a family. We had met some other travelers on the bus so we ate and hung out with them the first night and the rest of the weekend. The second day we went on a walk into the forest and then went on a terabitha across a canyon that led to a hike that led to 7 waterfalls.

Then we went zip lining which was super fun. We got to fly through the cloud forest and try different positions on the zipline.

Regular zip lining.

Nina doing the Superman

Kibby doing the Mariposa (upside down) with our cute as a button 14 year old guide. Haha!

Then we took a tour of the chocolate factory in Mindo. It was very interesting to see how chocolate is made. Most of the chocolate that they produce in and around Mindo is made into nibs and sold to other countries for processing. They do make some bars in Mindo but only for the tourists. Here are a whole bunch of cacao beans drying.

Here are the nibs ready for shipment

Last but not least we got to try some of the chocolate products. Unsweetened chocolate with sugar and ginger syrup or crushed red peppers. They also had some chocolate bar-b-q sauce to try.

The next day we woke up at the crack of dawn to go bird watching! The dad of the family who owned the hostel we were staying at, Marcelo, is a bird watcher and he is so good at what he does! The fact that he can find these tiny birds in trees hundreds of feet away is pretty amazing. He can also imitate many bird calls which he used to lure birds closer. For any bird watchers out there, here is a list of all the birds we saw:
* White-winged tanager
* Pootoo
* Grey motmot
* Cattle Egret
* Golden tanager
* Ornate Flycatcher
* Swallow tailed kite
* Squirrel cuckoo
* Tropical Kim bird
* Yellow Rumped Tanager
* Cinnamon Becard
* Crimson Rumped Toucanet
* Yellow-Bellied Seed-Eater
* White-Shouldered Tanager
* Spotted Woodcreeper
* Red Headed Barbet
* Slated-Cap Flycatcher
* Black Headed Vulture
* Double-Toothed (or toed) Kite
* Blue Necked Tanager
* Red Bearded Parrot
* Choco Toucan
* Pale Mandible Aracari Toucan (endemic)
* Plumbeous Pigeon
* Golden-Crowned Flycatcher
* Golden-Olive Woodpecker
* Golden Headed Quetzal
* Blue-Grey Tanager
* Rufous Motmot

I was able to take some pictures using Marcelo's super-zoom-scope (this is the official name). This is the black headed vulture which I thought of as bird watching 101 because even I could see this bird with my naked eye in the tree and it didn't move very much so he was easy to take pictures of and re-locate with the binoculars.

We saw 4 different kinds of toucans including this Choco Toucan. Isn't he a pretty guy?

This is the Golden Headed Quetzal. Very bright and beautiful.

And this is a type of Motmot.

Burgeoning bird watchers!