Abroad in the Galapagos: A Day in the Life

The opportunity to study abroad in the Galapagos is pretty unique. Before coming here, I would get questions about my abroad trip such as…

“Wait – are you going to be living on a boat?”

“There are actually people that live in the Galapagos?”

“Do you even have class?”
 

I get it – it’s pretty difficult to visualize what it’s like to live in a place that’s known for natural beauty, evolution, and “without human impact”. So, to give you a picture of “Life on the Galapagos” – Here’s a run-down of a “typical day” here. Stay tuned - I’ll upload a video of this once I’m back in the states (aka with faster internet and a bigger hard-drive for all my videos).

Wednesday October 7th

6:45am: Alarm goes off – snooze.

6:55am: Alarm goes off again - snooze. Kidding... Time to get ready for school.

7:40am: Meet up with Hanna and Erica to walk to breakfast. We get fed breakfast at school on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays

8:00am: Today I got yogurt, granola, bananas, and potatoes. Hearty way to start the morning!

9:00am: Lecture (Currently I am taking Marine Ecology). Today we learned about vertical and horizontal substrates and species interactions in these zones. We have about an hour every day, but this changes based on the class.

10:00am: Class discussion on 2 scientific readings from last night.... Had very little idea on what was going on (I’m an econ major, remember?) but my classmates are smart and helpful.

11:00am: Time to go into the field – Today we went snorkeling to actually observe and see first hand the differences in these vertical and horizontal substrates. Yesterday we visited tidal pools, and on the shore, we witnessed a sea lion giving birth!

12:00pm: LUNCH. Best time of the day because all restaurants have $4 almuerzo specials. You can get a soup, entire plate of food, and juice all for $4 – very filling and delicious. Today we got lobster soup and dish with rice, lentils, and fish.

1:00pm: Homework time. Today we wrote up our field report – we had to identify the species that we saw in the water. Since the last biology class I took was in the 5th grade, the work is pretty challenging, but it's fun to actually learn about what we are seeing every time we go in the water. My other classes are politics related (more up my alley), but I took Marine Ecology as I wanted the opportunity to gain more science experience.

3:00pm: Beach time. Normally we swim, tan, or snorkel since there are 3 beaches 10 minutes from campus… You can see the orange school building behind the beach in the top picture. The waves were crazy today, so most of us opted to just lie out in the sand… and chill with the sea lions, of course.

4:15pm: Work out time (for me at least). I try to get in one workout a day – most of the time this is easy because we go snorkeling or swimming at least every other day. But I like to do my insanity workouts… Today we did insanity on the roof of our school that looks out to the beach. Got a lot of weird looks, but life = Shaun T.

5:30pm: Sunset time! One of my favorite times in the day.

6:00pm: Spanish Class. This is just an optional class for one module. I definitely wish we had this for the other modules though... So helpful!

7:15pm: Walk home and go to dinner. Today I went to my host mom’s sister’s house for dinner. Once again – lobster for dinner. #blessed.

8:00pm: Homework. Readings of a few scientific papers.

9:00pm: Bed. Yes – I go to bed between 9-10 most days. I'm a grandma, I know, but I need my rest for these packed days.