Chao, Mis Islas.

This being my last week on the islands, I figured I might as well make the most of it. On Tuesday I found myself on a speedboat heading out to León Dormido for the last time. Armed with thicker wetsuits and hoods to combat the cold, we dropped into the water just outside the rock. The current was fierce; we were sucked into the channel even as we dropped. The murky water yielded an eerie ambiance as we found ourselves kneeling on the bottom, wafting back and forth over the rippled sand. We were surrounded by fish– more fish than I had ever imagined could congregate in one place, most of the species unfamiliar. Vibrant colors flashed from those who passed nearby; above I simply found myself staring into a dense moshpot of varied silhouettes framed the sun’s weak rays as they filtered down through the murk... and then the sharks came. By twos and threes, black-tipped reef sharks and Galápagos sharks emerged out of the gloom, surrounding us as they swam past against the current. At one point, I counted ten sharks in my immediate vicinity. As soon as the school of sharks had disappeared two schools of eagle rays made their entrance, drifting lazily through the water above us.

Thursday we dove for our final time. The visibility was horrible. Somehow it didn’t matter. Our first dive, at Tijeretas, turned up an abundance of moray eels, a marbled ray, schools of creolefish. Oh, and a stonefish. Which pretty much made my week, since I had wanted to see one since we arrived on the islands. We were lucky no one set a hand down on it; they aren’t kidding when they call them stonefish. Its lumpy mass was entirely covered in mottled gray and brown, exactly the same color as the rock upon which it rested. A lobo in a playful mood decided to join our group, twisting among us, blowing bubbles in our faces, tugging on our fins, and gazing dolefully into our eyes... until she decided to get a little too friendly and snapped directly at my mask, teeth coming within three inches of biting half my face off. Our second dive, at the wreck, was relatively uneventful. We spent a good fifteen minutes watching our favorite seahorse as it clung to its chosen branch of coral sticking out from the rusted wall. A spiny lobster skittered into the shadows, sea cucumbers clung to the bottom of the propellers, and moray eels peered out from corroded pipes. And I spent a generous amount of time doing somersaults and handstands, enjoying my last gravity-free experience.

So now I’m sitting in the Guayaquil airport on a layover to Quito. With functional internet. And a coffee stand. Which sells really bad hot chocolate. Yes, I speak from experience. It’s weird: Looking back, I really felt no qualms about leaving the island over the past three weeks. It was only after I had hugged my crazy awesome, super skinny, ultra chill, culturally appropriate Galapagueño classmate and friend Ramiro goodbye and walked through security that I started feeling somewhat forlorn. And then the plane took off, and I realized how damn tiny the town was that I had spent my last three months in. Really, it’s no surprise we can walk from one end to the other in 10 minutes. It’s a cluster of ramshackle buildings sticking out from a slope next to the ocean. And then I looked down through a break in the clouds to León Dormido, rising solid and defiant out of the sea, and I started getting all these flashbacks of the ocean, and fish, and lobos, and hammerheads, and the unique feeling of being suspended in a 3-D environment, water everywhere around me, free to propel myself in any direction I pleased with no noticeable force pulling me downward.

At the moment, obviously, I’m in just a little more pensive mood than usual and feeling generous about sharing the inner me: which, unless you’re one of a very select number of people, tends to happen on incredibly rare occasion. So take advantage of it… for the moment, I’ll settle with a rundown of the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Things I will not miss: Cockroaches. Stink beetles. Mosquitoes. Streets strewn with dead and flattened rats, chickens and cats. And trash. Everywhere. Karaoke “Oops I Did it Again,” off key, repeatedly, in my living room. Avril Lavigne’s “Complicated.” Anything else associated with the name Avril Lavigne, Brittany Spears, or tween Hollywood. Whistling, catcalls, come-ons, hissing, insinuations, suggestions, and blatant sexual advances. By 15-year olds. By 20-year olds. By 50-year olds. By cops. Nope, not kidding. Rice. Salt. Stale white bread. Boiled potatoes. Machismo culture. Jokes from my host dad in response to which, were I in the states, I would most likely file for a restraining order. Fried fruit. The omnipresent smell of raw sewage. An overabundance of puppies and emaciated strays living off trash. The stagnant 90° house.

Things I will miss: 85 and sunny with an evening breeze. Hammerheads. The sea. Frigatebirds, boobies, octopi, rays, and lobos. Even the ones who chase me. Being chased by sharks. Fire poi on the beach. Diving. My classmates. Even the bizarre ones. For the most part. But seriously, they were amazing. Shay, my wonderful Israeli divemaster, who gave me matzo and made my week during Passover. Chocolate-covered frozen bananas. A giant market of cheap fresh fruit situated a block from home. They giant, unobstructed black sky full of stars shining down in all their glory.

So, I’m back on the continent. I honestly have no idea whether I’ll have time to write in the next month, mas o menos, so don’t hold your breath. Love and hugs to everyone at home; I miss you guys.

PS. I’m posting this from Quito, and trust me, I have without doubt found my way out of Kansas. It’s 60°. It’s freezing. The end.