I Found Paradise.

It takes ten minutes to walk across the town of Puerto Baquerizo Moreno, situated on the southwest corner of Isla San Cristóbal in the Galapagos. My walk to school takes me seven blocks down toward the sea, past a couple grocery stores, the town’s nonfunctional hospital, and one of the two “main roads.” I then walk several blocks along the Malicon (waterfront), dodging herons, crabs, and indolent sea lions (lobos) who haven’t gotten their asses off the sidewalks, benches and stairs and into the water yet and passing pods of gringos who’ve just been ferried to the tourist pier, loaded with backpacks, binoculars, and sun hats as they clump together, unsure of where to go and gawping at the aforementioned lobos. I then follow a beach another couple blocks, turn up a block past an inn, turn and follow a road a few blocks parallel to the water, and arrive either at (to the left) Playa Mann, or (to the right) la universidad. La universidad is the nicest building in town. It has two classrooms, a computer lab filled with ancient PCs, a library, an upstairs with a kitchen and common room for eating and working, a balcony, dorm rooms for the professors, and the slowest wireless I have ever encountered in my life. And we’re supposed to use it to download articles. No joke. During class we do our best to stay awake and only succeed half the time. During breaks, we run across the street to jump in the water.

At the time the last census was taken in 2006, the town of Puerto Baquerizo Moreno had around 6,000 inhabitants, which means there are around 8,000 people living here now. So, I came here with a mission to find a guy named Pepe, which I thought would be accomplished on my first day in a town this size. What I didn’t realize is that every person on the island goes by at least one nickname and more than likely several. Everyone knows everyone, but more often than not, people don’t know each others’s real names. So, I ask a guy I’m having a beer with if he knows someone around my age named Pepe. He say he doesn’t know, but maybe he knows him by another name. Do I know his last name? No. I’ll try to get a photo, though. So I go home and tell my host parents I’m looking for Pepe, and no I don’t have a last name, and no I don’t have a photo, but I think he has a young kid (but I could be mistaken) and he might have a friend named Juan. They start laughing in my face. Later, my host parents take me to meet my host grandmother, who owns the nicest bar on the island, and my host uncle Marco. My host grandmother promptly sets tequila shots in front of myself and my host dad. Fifteen minutes later, my host mom decides to inform her brother that I’m looking for Pepe. Marco looks at me. “Pepe? I know 30.” We all start laughing hysterically. “I think he has a friend named Juan.” “I know 29.” We laugh harder. “I think he has a kid?” “I know 20.” Shit. “I’ll try to get a photo.” So later that evening, having obtained a photo, I show my host parents. Ooh, that Pepe. We thought that might be the one. Well, thanks. So, yesterday after tracking him down for a couple days I finally found Pepe, delivered a message, and came out of the experience with all the knowledge I will ever need to know about the meaning of life.

I never knew that such adorable animals as baby sea lions could make such hideous noises as dying sheep. But they do, and they’re everywhere. During the day they play in the water, swim with us, or laze on the beach, sharing the rocks with basking marine iguanas and hundreds of crabs. At night, they take over the Malicon– mashed under benches, on top of benches, on the walkways, against buildings, and in every spot on the beaches, half-out of water and plopped down in seaweed or not. Pups suckle or make their way through the colony bleating pitifully. Machos chase after each other, picking fights, squashing anyone in their path. And the females sack out, sound asleep.

Snorkeling on the equator is like snorkeling in bathwater. Yesterday, our class took a little jaunt out to Isla Lobo (Sea Lion Island) and León Dormido (Kicker Rock) to have some fun out in the Big Bad Ocean. At Isla Lobo, we slathered ourselves with sunscreen, jumped out of the boat and into the crystal clear water, and explored the edge of the tiny island above shallow rocks and sandy bottoms. We found stingrays, marine iguanas, a couple of small spotted eagle rays, barracudas, and some sea lions who decided to play around us for a while. We then headed out to León Dormido and jumped into choppier seas, to snorkel the channel separating the rock’s entirety. It was one of the most beautiful and eerie places I’ve ever been. Outside the passage, the sun’s rays penetrated the water all around me, down through schools of fish and the occasional shark to where they were lost in deep blue darkness. The rock walls were covered in giant barnicles, coral, sea stars, hundreds of species of fish and other organisms. The occasional sea lion appeared, gliding around the island in search of food. Inside the passage, the ocean floor rose to a depth of 15 meters or so. We swam above and dived with hundreds of schools of fish and sharks who thronged in pods below. A couple lucky souls spotted a hammerhead. As we were about to leave, a school of spotted eagle rays, massive and graceful and somewhat alien, made their way into the passage. Individually, they reminded me of grumpy old grandpas. As a whole school, however, they exuded a majestic, eerie ambience, distinctly making me think of Star Wars as they loomed out of the deep blue watery abyss, gliding slowly but purposefully in formation through the channel above the hundreds of sharks below. (All right, I'm a nerd. Moving on.)

Throughout the day I applied sunscreen four times and snorkeled with a t-shirt from noon onward… and I’m still sunburned. Gotta love it.