Work here is becoming ever-more complicated, as I'm turning my attention from birds to plants. As far as the wildlife goes, my experience on Isabella was unmatchable. There's a mix of wild animals you wouldn't find anywhere else in the world – yet, amazingly it all seems so natural.
Last month I told how I had been entrusted with the Park's camera and sent on my merry way to find and photograph as many birds as I could. Well, in all I captured twenty-nine birds on film. Sadly, my films can't be developed here, so I'll have to wait and send them to the continent.
The text for the guide is also done – it fell to me to write both the English and the Spanish versions. Luckily I got an Ecuadorian to polish my Spanish. So now I'm back on Santa Cruz working with the Park's design man on the guide's layout.
I thought for a while I was going to make some money out of Isabella, having lined up a guy who was prepared to pay me £5 a hour for English lessons and having struck a deal with a local restaurant – food in exchange for English teaching. But the bloke never showed up for his first lesson and the food in the restaurant was terrible – by lesson five it consisted of two rolls with jam!
Overall my time on Isabella was just too quiet for me. The first two weeks were great, but then I needed more social contact. So it was with some relief that I got back to Santa Cruz and the friends I'd made here.
My first day back I picked up so many 'hi's' in the street that I felt like a minor celebrity. It didn't take long either before getting my first party invite and re-finding my salsa feet.
I'd hoped to return to sunshine and clear skies after the wetter conditions of Isabella. No such luck. The start of the cooler season means I've had to abandon my evening swims, the skies are mostly grey, and it rains what the locals call 'garua' nearly everyday.
Garua is English drizzle masquerading under another name – it goes on for just as long and feels just as wet.
The other cloud on the horizon back on Santa Cruz was that I discovered I'd lost the accommodation I had organised. Before I set off I'd found a cheap house-share with a guy who obviously knew one end of a broom from the other (unlike my previous, disastrous house mates). But while I was away he'd let the room out to someone else, so I have to make do with the spare room for now.
Still, the house is luxurious compared with the tortoise breeding centre in Isabella. It even has a modest kitchen. You wouldn't believe how good my first cup of tea for six weeks tasted.
Apart from the humans I have several wilder housemates. My favourites are the geckos, which are funny little things. I suppose the best way to described them is as a recently trodden on lizard.
Now I'm back at headquarters I've made a start on my next project. The Park has surpassed itself, finding me something I know even less about than birds – an inventory of introduced plants. I'm looking at the urban area of Santa Cruz, so it's been up to me to go snooping around in peoples' gardens.
I ended up wrestling with a woman last week over the contents of her garden. She was very reluctant to show me round as if I was some sort of plant police officer. On inspection I could fully understand her hesitation – it appeared she had single-handedly managed to smuggle onto the island the majority of the country's restricted seeds and plants. "I'm not going to tell you were I hid that violet to get through the airport checks," she said chuckling.
I'd been pressing a guy from personnel at the Park to sort out my paperwork and make me a legal Galapagos resident for ages. This month he finally delivered. It makes sleeping at night a lot easier knowing that you won't be thrown off the island at a moment's notice.
To be fair to the personnel guy, it doesn't help that the Park has just two telephone lines for 80 people. Or that there is always a background rhythm of Latin music coming from the computers – you are more likely here to have CD players and speakers on your computer than Word or Excel.
Now don't get me wrong, I like the Latin tunes as much as the next Ecuadorian. But when you have to shout to make yourself heard just the other side of the desk, and can't hear a knock at the office door you have to wonder if the the beat is misplaced.
Enough. Next month I should have my bird photos back from the continent. By then I reckon I'll know something about plants in the Galapagos, and I plan to use this to say something about the Darwinian ideas that helped to make the archipelago famous.
Source
Building Sustainable Design
Postscript
Dr Jason Palmer, Santa Cruz, Galapagos
