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Family and Friends
Letters 2010.
December
2010
Dear Friends and Family,
Last month I wrote in good humor a
letter about stereotypes of
“vacationers” we have had the real
privilege to entertaining, a kind of
cheek in mouth (tongue in cheek)
celebration of traveler’s oddities. I
would love to receive the same kind of
perspective from any of you on
ourselves.
Vacationers are not
the only off island visitors we receive.
One night a man arrived at our
house just after our son had gone to
sleep and just
before we were going to
bed. He showed up with the business card
of the captain of the police force here
at that time, a number of official
looking badges and explained that he was
here to work undercover trying to stop
the drugs that pass through the
Galapagos in route to international
markets. It is far easier to get drugs
into the Galapagos and then to get them
shipped off than trying to smuggle them
off from the continent; less stringent
inspections for items heading to the
Galapagos, boats meet at GPS coordinates
in the middle of the night. This man,
who ever he was, wanted us to talk about
suspicious neighbors etc. This being the
island community that it is, we offered
our emotional support.
The
governor of the Galapagos (when he was
governor, now heads up the World Wild
Life Foundation efforts here) used to
show up once a week or so. He would
close and lock the gate behind him, post
up in the hammock on our veranda, turn
off his phone and relax. San Cristobal
is the political capital of the
Galapagos. Santa Cruz is the tourist
capital. This man was born and raised on
Floreana, population 85, is now
University educated, headed up a
movement to oust a judge who was taking
bribes to release foreign owned fishing
vessels which had been caught in the
territorial waters of the Galapagos
poaching. When he was newly appointed
governor I would ask people about what
they thought of him, most of the
responses were, if anyone can straighten
out this mess, it would be him. The
reason he was at our house is that he
did and still does live on Santa Cruz
with his wife and kids, but as governor
much of his work was here, actually he
could have done just as good or better
of a job from Santa Cruz, but there were
some people who did not like the idea of
the governor not doing his work from the
capital, so after a hard days work
against silly mind sets, where better to
go?
We get door to door salesmen
like I remember in the US as a kid; they
offer vacuum cleaners, cook books,
insurance, water filters, watches and
jewelry, god and salvation. I’ve been
waiting for one selling encyclopedias.
Those I might buy if only for the
novelty because I remember very well two
sets my folks bought and that I broke
the spines of pouring/playing over as a
kid.
We receive a lot of “do
gooders” who need some help doing their
good works and more often than not leave
with their projects unfulfilled simply
because they had no idea what they were
dealing with, thought they were arriving
to some needy, impoverished location and
that they would get to see the animals
while they were doing their good works
only to find that while the population
of the Galapagos is truly in need of
good works, it is not impoverished as
are so many places in our country. The
problems we face as a community in the
Galapagos are mostly educational/real
world perspective based. There is
practically no crime here so it is a do
gooder’s paradise, plus they get to see
the animals.
We receive clergy
from every denomination you can imagine,
all very happy to do “missionary work”
here, their churches willing to fund
purchases of property and construction
costs. We have every denomination
imaginable here. I dare you to find a
town with a population of less then ten
thousand with the same representation of
churches.
We get students with
some survey or thesis they want to
write, investor types with a ton of
questions, government officials wanting
to know “our take” on things. We are
generally at the disposal of all of
these people even after all of the
years. The overwhelming majority are
just talking, enjoying the time they are
doing it here. Real accomplishments that
result aside from a few pleasant
moments’ conversation are few and far
between. While talk is entertaining and
“cheap” for them, resulting in at least
a nice story they will be able to tell
about the locals they were able to meet,
for us it often is expensive, owing to
the sheer mass of these same
conversations we have again and again.
I used to go out of my way to be
friendly to new people on the island.
Now I’ll smile or wave attempting to
convey “enjoy yourselves but don’t bug
me”. They come and go so quickly and
there are so many of them wanting to
borrow your books, needing your help and
insights, I’ve reached a point where I
“evaluate” if it is “worth my while” to
even talk to people who don’t live here,
my “while” being overly occupied with my
son, our work here, etc. This is often
regrettable.
There was a man,
about my age more or less, thin, short
with a tear drop turquoise earring,
short cut grey hair, balding who came to
the “sidewalk café” where my son and I
 were having breakfast after our normal
dawn jog and beach swim before I had to
get him ready and off to pre-school.
This man ordered coffee in a fluent but
accented Spanish. He intrigued me. I
under different circumstances would have
liked to talk with him, see what his
“story” was. It/he could have been
anything or anyone and I was fairly
certain he was someone I would at least
enjoy talking with, maybe getting to
know, but there was no way in the world
I would have exchanged my attention for
my son on that particular morning for
the few minutes it would have taken to
converse with him. If he had tried to
initiate a conversation, I would have
cut it off. That would have been a sorry
welcome to the Galapagos. For all I know
he lives on Santa Cruz, didn’t need a
welcome and probably didn’t want to talk
to me anyway.
Siempre Amor,
Rick, Bere and Roley
|
Family and Friends
Letters 2010.
November
2010
Dear Friends and Family,
I’ve been writing these things (these
monthly letters to friends and family,
archived on out web site) for years now.
The letters go out to more than 1,000 of
you. About half of those are people that
have been here with us. Every month I
receive a reply from several of you,
some thanking me for my efforts in
writing these things, some others
relaying personal antidotes, rarely some
requesting to be off our mailing list,
all of which I really appreciate and
generally enjoy.
I have years of
experience watching people on vacation
in a “controlled” environment. By
“controlled”, I mean they arrive here in
the Galapagos, have the same quality of
hotels and guides and food and
experiences, have basically the same
communication before they arrive here
and yet although all of you have been
unique, interesting, dynamic people…
There are some stereo-types I’d like to
share.
“The Retro Traveler”
enjoys his or her vacation far more
after the fact. This can be true of
anyone or any vacation, however the
retro traveler knows this going in,
embraces that they are here for the sake
of their future conversations when they
will not be here. I’m not knocking it.
It has advantages. In a retro vacation,
mild intestinal problems have been
forgotten, irritating things with time
become funny, the boredom of long plane
flights completely disappears. You
remember it was a long plane flight, but
from a retro perspective, it was part of
the “adventure”. A retro vacation can be
spun any way you like. This can be taken
to extremes though the results of which
are a preoccupation with Kodak moments,
an absolute need to purchase souvenirs
and a mild desperation reflected by that
little nagging question sitting just off
the corner of consciousness, it sits
there and even when you know you are
having fun the question adapts to, “Are
we having enough fun yet?”
The
Photographer Traveler is generally quite
content here because of the myriads of
unique subject matter. They are
interested in everything, shades of
light, rocks, leaves, sand, clouds, etc.
They are “capturing” things, images. No
matter how jovial or personable they are
they all seem to have a somber side, an
awareness that they are constantly
missing something, some shot, some
angle, thus they tend to try to make the
most of the things they aren’t missing.
The Happy Camper Traveler. We get a
lot of these and they tend to be, well,
happy. They are going to have fun no
matter what happens. They have cast
their vacation into a strangers hands
(mine) and arrive without much of any
agenda other than to enjoy themselves.
These people are happy standing around
the airport. A trip to the Galapagos to
them is yet another voyage to see what
happens when you’re a happy camper.
The Critical Vacationer or the half
empty jar- The nicest side of these
people is their willingness to look for
areas that can use improvement and
kindly pointing them out. Of course
there are always areas that can be
improved, “I think I would have enjoyed
that sea lion pup blowing bubbles in my
face more if it happened a little closer
to the boat…”
The Virtual
Traveler. We never see any of them.
The Three Kings Traveler arrives
bearing gifts, good will and few
expectations. They are closely related
to the Happy Camper, frequently are
happy campers who have found their life
circumstances involving offspring and
some discretionary income.
The
Psycho Traveler-or we take ourselves
with us wherever we go. The Psycho
Traveler or PT emerges from the most
ordinary looking traveler. It manifests
in myriads of forms and degrees. Foreign
travel can be hard on nerves and
suppressed psychotic tendencies can
sneak their way out when their host is
far away from home and exhausted.
We all have a little PT in us. I
could imagine myself at my wits end,
stuck on some desert island with low
blood sugar saying the following which
is a direct quote, “Can you do something
about those animals? They are either
trying to play with me or completely
ignoring me. Make them run away or stand
still. I’m trying to enjoy my vacation
now, please!” ;-)
Siempre Amor,
Rick, Bere and
Roley
|
Family and Friends
Letters 2010.
October
2010
Dear Friends and Family,
 Earlier
last month we were paid a visit by the
man who performed our civil wedding
ceremony here on San Cristobal five
years ago. His wife hung herself three
weeks after our wedding. Apparently, as
per her note she hung herself because
she could no longer bear living with her
husband’s infidelities. He was visiting
us to promote the new hotel he had built
in the years since her suicide.
Suicide by hanging seems to be the
method of choice on these islands. My
guess is the rope is the most economical
option. We just lost a good kid, 22
years old last week. We heard about it
on a blackberry my wife has while we
were in the US for three weeks. Please
forgive my flippancy with this topic, my
other available choice seems to be
uncontrollable rage. Every couple of
months someone dies this way in the
Galapagos. Very often they are “only”
aquiantences, too often friends. If this
were the US, there would be warning
labels attached perhaps to life in the
Galapagos, more likely to every rope
sold. I can imagine one of those red
circles with a line through it and in
the circle is someone placing a noose
over their head. In the case of the wife
of the man who performed our wedding
ceremony it might have been better to
have a warning label on him, circle with
a line through it over a picture of a
marriage ceremony.
The church
bells ring on Sundays at five thirty AM
to wake you, at five forty-five to hurry
you along and at six to tell you you’re
late. They ring constantly when there’s
an emergency and they ring when there’s
a death, six bells and a pause, six
bells and a pause, six times. Usually we
know of someone’s who’s bad sick (small
town) or if not, fear there’s been some
kind of serous accident and when we hear
that series of bells… in the pause
between the six rings you can hear the
sea lions bellow on the beach, almost
feel the sea turtles bobbing their heads
above the water to take a breath, the
Blue footed Boobies taking an instant
from skydiving for fish. They do not
ring the bells for suicides.
They
installed the first traffic light four
years ago and the mayor was so proud he
put on a party to end all parties in
celebration of how fast we are moving
forward, except of course when the light
is red. Shortly there after he began to
hear jokes about how a small and
unsophisticated town could be referred
to as a “one traffic light town”, so he
put in a second traffic light. There was
no party for the second light. It was
only six years ago that we received
electricity 24 hours a day.
A
large part of the population have some
odd and cherished ideas about
themselves, my wife included: There is
more infidelity in this town than
anywhere else on the planet. More than
fifty percent of the youth have aids.
Seventy-five percent of the people are
addicted to drugs or alcohol. I’ve been
here six years and have yet to see an
aids patient. The percentage isn’t
accurate about drug and alcohol abuse,
but there is a tolerance/acceptance for
this behavior that does not exist in
“developed” countries. As for the
infidelity, they may be right. During
the first year of our marriage, when my
wife was away for a week, I politely
fended off a surprisingly long string of
women visitors with nothing more on
their minds than to try and take “the
gringo” for a test drive.
Most if
not all of our eccentricities result
from the fact that this is a Latin
culture and we live in a small community
on a large island six hundred miles off
the coast of a third world nation. The
small remaining part of our
eccentricities, aside from normal human
eccentricities, in my opinion result
because we prefer to think of ourselves
as living on the cutting edge of
twenty-first century civilization rather
than in a kind of South American back
water and for proof we act like people
we see in the soap operas, prefer to
believe we have serious aids and drug
problems and even better we have the
only traffic lights in the Galapagos. No
traffic of course, just the lights. My
only comment on the actions and thought
processes of my friends and neighbors
is, Bless their hearts.
In the
Galapagos, when we see stars, we see
stars in both hemispheres, but the truth
is we don’t really get to see that many
stars for cloud cover etc., but in the
hottest months, Jan. through March (our
clearest months), below the
 stars
you will see, flying high above the
lights of the pueblo cow egrets.
Circling, circling, endlessly circling.
These egrets are bright white and in the
night they are simply white specks high
in the sky, illuminated from below by
the lights and look a little like moving
stars or planets. A couple of years back
we had an eco-scientist kid here from
Wales, visiting on vacation. His job
when he was not on vacation was/is to be
the “control” person to see that boats
or companies are actually following the
environmentally focused edicts mandated
in their contracts, for example huge
fishing trawlers, oil platforms in the
middle of the ocean, etc. This kid has a
scientific mind and could not come up
with a reason for the actions of these
egrets. His curiosity was as amazing as
the birds themselves. What the hell are
they doing up there and why? He really
wanted to know. I just look up and them
and smile, thank them and the lucky
stars behind them for our lives here.
Siempre Amor,
Rick, Bere and
Roley
|
Family and Friends
Letters 2010.
September
2010
Dear Friends and Family,
More and more people are showing up here
in San Cristobal following guide books,
Lonely Planet, etc. They get themselves
to Quito, hustle a flight here, arrive,
feel like self sufficient pioneers. What
the guide books don’t tell them is that
traveling to the Galapagos is not
anything like traveling to say, Costa
Rica or Italy. The islands really aren’t
set up for that kind of backpacker
mentality. Visitors really do need a
guide here, not to keep from getting
lost or robbed, but just to be shown and
receive an explanation of the things
that they came so far to see. All
“organized tours” in the Galapagos are
required to have a National Park guide
with them. This is both to protect the
wildlife and inform the visitors. Guide
book followers are not “organized
tours”. Yesterday, I had a heart
breaking conversation with two men from
Australia. They’d brought their wives
and kids with them, had been here for
several days and only had a couple more
left. They hadn’t swam with the sea
lions yet (there’s a trick to getting
them to swim with you), their kids
wanted to see penguins (which are only
found on Isabela), they went to see the
giant tortoises in the afternoon (when
all the tortoises do is lay around),
didn’t know a veritable sea turtle
convention is held every afternoon just
around the corner from where they had
been snorkeling, one of the wives and
two of the kids had food poisoning. I
took an hour and explained everything I
could, got them set up on a boat trip,
took the wife to the pharmacy. Unlike
the Asian woman who I found throwing
rocks at the sea lions and giggling, or
the European tourist with the sea lion
pup in his arms, posing for a flash
photo, these guys I felt sorry for.
People “practice” here in Ecuador.
My first experience with this phenomena
was with a kid who was learning to surf.
He had caught a couple waves and was
 stoked. When I spoke with him after one
of his waves, about how well he was
doing, he deflected the compliment
saying he was only practicing. I told
him you can not practice surfing, you’re
either surfing or your not. If you’re in
the water on a surfboard catching waves
you are surfing, not “practicing”. Since
the marathon, “practicing” running has
become more popular here. I have yet to
hear of anyone practicing cleaning house
or practicing laundry. To get a
perspective I once asked a taxi driver
in Quito if he was practicing driving.
He immediately pulled over to the curb
and said, “Now I’m practicing getting
you out of my cab!”
Forgive me,
but I forgot who it was who so
graciously brought us mouse traps from
the US. We have mouse traps here that
are made in China, the problem is they
are built for large mice and the mice we
have here aren’t much bigger or heavier
than our cockroaches which are large and
fly. I have taken it to a science,
adapting the Chinese mouse traps to have
a hair trigger, raised baiting to an
art, but my best efforts catch as many
cockroaches as mice and not very many of
either. US mouse traps are far superior,
and these splendid, magnanimous
individuals (thank you again!) brought a
kinder gentler mouse trap which actually
traps the mouse live. The mouse wanders
into a little plastic box where I’ve
position some “gourmet” bread crumbs,
they cross a very subtle balance point
and the door closes behind them. These
things are so reliable they catch baby
mice. If I notice a mouse, I’ll set them
out and within hours each one will have
a mouse in it. I’ll set them again until
there are no more mice in the house and
then I put the traps away, no muss no
fuss. What do I do with the mice after I
catch them? I use an old trick I was
taught from experience with a cat which
used to bring live gophers into the
house, one or two a day. After too many
gruesome sessions with live gophers,
large rocks and shovels I hit on an
idea. Now, as I did with the gophers, I
simply send the mice to Hyber Nation,
the country you enter through the top
door of our refrigerator. They curl up
and go to sleep for a long winter. After
a few hours they roll out of the box
looking like mouse marbles. The only
draw back is if guests come and look in
the freezer, a somewhat delicate
conversation ensues, especially if the
night’s meal is tacos.
Photos
courtesy of “the Mortlocks”. Thanks
again for being the gracious people you
are, coming to visit and sending the
photos.
Siempre Amor,
Rick, Bere and Roley
|
Family and Friends
Letters 2010.
August
2010
Dear Friends and Family,
 My
wife has had three jobs these past
months and I two, they all dove tail,
and each one is full time. Leave it to a
gringo to bring mad ambition to an
island paradise.
In Ecuador every
eighteen year old is required to spend
one year in the army or navy. You can
buy your way out for $500. The
“conscriptos” are paid $30 a month,
given food and clothing and a place to
sleep. Most of the many who I had the
opportunity to ask said they would love
to have a career in the Navy, but there
are only so many permanent posts
available, so there is small chance a
“conscripto” or as they are called
“Charlies” have to be employed for life
(or for as long as you like) in the
navy. In a third world nation you can
imagine the lure of a job for life.
Still, a few of them aspire and these
were the kids I could rely on as “race
director” of “The Come To Galapagos
Marathon”.
Their officers have
their pluses and minuses. They do have a
job for life, with limited advancement
opportunities
available if they do not have political
or economic connections. Still a few of
those aspire and these few were the men
who I could I rely on. There is an
officer on the naval base here, a
Lieutenant Javier Arces. This man
extrapolated my needs from his limited
understanding of what we were trying to
do and would surprise me with things
like creating bathrooms on the highest
elevation of the island, took on a job
that needed three days preparation (the
logistics of positioning, educating and
supplying the Charlies that would man
aid stations) with only three hours to
do it. He only had three hours to do it
because try as I did, I couldn’t get
them to begin planning this part of the
test run, neither could I get them to
organize the runners. The idea of a
“test” to some officers was interpreted
to mean “let’s see how bad we can screw
up”, rather than “let’s see how good we
are or aren’t”. We spent a 4:00 AM
morning dropping of ill clothed
“Charlies” in the wind, drizzle and dark
of the highlands. We tested our ability
to find the proper locations of the aid
stations, distribute the Charlies,
tables, water, erect tents etc. etc. In
the miserable conditions of our pre dawn
highlands test marathon he would call
the Charlies, “Cha Lee”. That
unnecessarily inept pre dawn test
marathon took on an Asian/Vietnamese
flavor for me.
The
test marathon was a long list of
failures, the police vehicles didn’t
know the route, the test runners rather
than being distributed through the three
races
 had made teams and were running
the marathon as a competition between
the teams, not as an opportunity to test
the various races together for signage
etc., runners got lost, police didn’t
know what to do, the aid stations didn’t
have telephones, the only
accomplishments were getting a clear
idea of the logistics involved in moving
people and equipment and scaring the
Commandant. If the marathon went off
anything like the test, he could kiss
his career good-bye. Now he understood
why I had been pestering him. I was
given the approximate rank of an
Admiral. If I needed anything, people
jumped.
I have very similar
stories about the Police, the
municipality, the civil defense, the
national Park, The Consejo de Goberieo,
high schools, radio and TV stations.
So how did the marathon go? People
were crying, runners and locals, crying
for joy.
I positioned myself
outside the gates of the stadium where
the runners were to finish their races
after running half
the track that ran around the soccer
field behind me. I wanted to be there to
personally applaud every one of them. I
had no idea that the stadium would be
packed, that the local kids would run
out beyond the stadium to escort the
runners in and around the track, nor was
I prepared for the volume of the
applause as each one past the finish
line. As the last marathon runners
entered the stadium I was pretty amazed.
I was really proud the people of the
Pueblo, of the runners, proud of all the
people that worked so hard to put this
thing together.
In Spanish there
is a word for an accomplishment and
another for a success. For days
afterward people would stop me in the
street to say thanks, stop me on my
“moto” (ATV) to shake my hand and utter
the words exito and logro while pumping
my hand in a warm shake.
The international
runners had things to say like, this was
the best organized, the most wonderful,
the most incredible…etc. etc.
Siempre Amor,
Rick, Bere and Roley
|
Family and Friends
Letters 2010.
July
2010
Dear Friends and Family,
The $100 Senora…
I was outside the
office taking a break from my work,
watching the sea lions play, the boobies
and the pelicans
working the shallow waters off the beach
when this older woman approached me with
a friendly smile, dressed as if she were
going to an expensive luncheon in some
city. She was very curious and by and by
she worked out of me details about our
lives here, the alternative school we
are trying to make/build and the
upcoming marathon. After a time I had to
excuse myself to get back to work on the
marathon maps I had to present to the
chief of police later that day. We
parted ways. Twenty minutes later she
came back and said she wanted to make a
donation to our school. She handed me a
$100 bill with a smile. “You have no
idea who I am,” I told her with the bill
in my hand. “Yes, I do,” she said. I
asked for her e-mail etc. to keep her
informed on our project, she smiled and
declined, did accept our business card
out of courtesy, I suspect. I seriously
doubt we will ever hear from her again.
I first came here in 2003, had
intended to spend six days, I left six
weeks later. One of the many remarkable
 experiences
I had during those weeks was purchasing
a can of Quatita in what was as close to
a supermarket as we had here then. The
can cost $2. At that market you still
can buy live chickens, legs of pigs and
goats, whole fish, etc. but it is a far
cry (tears for the rapid changes
happening here) from what it was. That
year it took me a week to find a can
opener in this town. The can I had
wanted to open had a pretty picture,
something like Dinty Moore beef stew. I
had been traveling for several months by
that time and some more conventional
food was appealing. Apparently what ever
Quatita was it came in a brown sauce
with potatoes, carrots and onions.
Quatita was not in the dictionary, nor a
number of the ingredients listed on the
can. I figured how bad could it be if
they bothered to put it in a can? Turned
out it could be pretty bad. I opened the
can to find these little bits of meat,
looking something like a thinly sliced
orange sponge with a skin backing and
some fish guts hanging off the side.
Quatita is cow stomach stew. I was told
I should try some of the home made
version which in the following years I
studiously avoided until last week. Home
made Quatita is actually very good. They
serve it for
breakfast once a week at one of the
restaurants and I’m going back next
week.
We have mother’s day and
father’s day just like in the US, but
also we have kid’s day. This is a day
where the locals poison their kids more
than normal with sugar. Obesity and
diabetes are, my guess more prevalent
here per capita or at least close to par
with the worst community in the US,
still, nutritional issues aside, pretty
cool, “kid’s day”.
The weather
turned colder than normal this year, or
maybe my blood is just thinning. It was
hotter than normal and for longer than
normal this year, all the way into May
people were still using their air
conditioners. Now, for the first time, I
find myself wearing shoes everyday,
sleeping under the covers, wearing an
undershirt and an over shirt, even put
on a jacket the other day. I don’t have
a thermometer, but my guess is the low
temp is maybe 62 at night. High temp
around 72 during the day.
 We
arrived home the other day on the ATV,
pulled into the yard and there was a six
foot marine iguana in the garden
stomping around my son’s Tonka trucks.
Our house is maybe fifty yards from the
coast and for the life of me I don’t
know what it was doing or how it got
there. That would have been a photo.
We have hundreds of remarkable
photos of the animals here, but
surprisingly few with people interacting
with the animals. Here are a couple
taken a few weeks back. Note marine
iguana eating, etc.
Siempre Amor,
Rick, Bere and Roley
|
Family and Friends
Letters 2010.
June
2010
Dear Friends and Family,
 Last
week we received a call from the
secretary of the Commandant of the naval
base here. The naval base is helping us
with the marathon and they are the most
reliable of all our resources. They will
do what they say they will do. The
police are second to them, but suspect;
the city government may or may not do
what they promise without qualms. Anyway
the secretary of the commandant told me
“the admirante” wanted to talk to me. He
was polite, but the message was clearly,
“he wants to see you NOW”.
Admirar means to admire, te is a
familiar form of you. Sometimes in
Spanish you will say, The Lucy, or The
Richard within a familiar context where
there could be no other Lucy or Richard.
I assumed the secretary was talking
about one of the underlings of the
commandant who has been helping us with
an extraordinary amount of respect
toward me concerning the details of the
marathon. With my weak Spanish I thought
he was joking about this man, “the
admirer of you wants to see you and it
is important”. Still Bere (my wife) and
I dropped everything and came running.
Bere knew where she was going. I didn’t,
thought simply it is important to help
the people that are helping us and I was
glad that Bere felt the same way.
At the entrance to the naval base,
the captain of the guard had a very
different attitude, a deference I have
never been granted before and I’m pretty
good buddies with them. We soon found
ourselves in a meeting with the Admiral
(admerante) of the Ecuadorean navy, his
right and left hand admirals and their
secretaries, all dressed in impeccable
white uniforms and shoes. I needed a
shave, had my do-rag head dress, slaps,
shorts etc.
The Admiral was here to inspect the
naval base. He re-arranged his schedule
and for four hours we talked about the
details of the marathon, we toured the
course with which he is in awe. The
armed forces here in Ecuador were in
years passed associated with the best
athletes of the country, but that image
has faded and he wants to reestablish
it, he wants the people of mainland
Ecuador to have an understanding that
the Ecuadorean Navy has a firm and
developed presence here in the
Galapagos, all of the armed forces are
currently engaged in a community
outreach program throughout the country,
he was in his youth not only a marathon
runner, but also responsible for
organizing four marathons for the armed
forces and it has been one of his dreams
to have a marathon in the Galapagos. He
lacked a local, responsible entity to
pull this off. Before the navy was
helping us, now they are supporting us
with anything we lack in exchange for
the publicity they will garner as our
primary sponsor this year and the years
going forward. This will give the
marathon some stability within the
frequently changing political realities.
Governments change here, in years passed
radically, but the military is constant
and it serves them well that we are both
a local and international company. The
Commandant of the San Cristobal base
received huge kudos from the admiral for
his initial work with us and the greater
responsibility for helping us now to a
heightened extent.
We don’t get
storms here, no hurricanes, no weather
fronts; the wind never blows harder than
20 knots, generally around 5. We do have
tsunamis and erupting volcanoes. The
latest one on the continent, Tungurahua
(tone-ger-ah’-wah) outside of Banos
spewed flying rocks
 and
ash on May 29. On the TV we saw families
tearfully lamenting the death of loved
ones struck by these falling rocks.
There was so much ash that it covered
the airport in Guayaquil (200 plus miles
away) with a half inch of ash and shut
down that international airport for more
than a day.
On a somewhat lighter
note, May is one of my favorite months
here in the Galapagos. The weather has
cooled down a little, most days are
still sunny, the ocean temperature
becomes refreshing, it is a slow month
for tourism in general and for us May is
frequently a month where we have no
visiting hearts, time to relax and enjoy
where we live. These first days of June
have been a delight. The temperature
varies between coldest at dawn 68
degrees and warmest in the afternoon 72
degrees in the shade and there is a
delightful breeze and plenty of
sunshine.
This May was different
for us work wise. We had six groups of
“hearts”, were/are in the middle of
organizing a marathon for the first of
Aug. which will inject $300,000 directly
into the local community over the course
of four days, once every year. There was
an outbreak of Dengue that affected
approximately half the population, the
“officials” finally acknowledged that
the local water supply was contaminated
with typhoid, gerardia and a number of
other pathenogens (many of my friends
and neighbors have not been inoculated
for typhoid), the alternative school we
are creating made some significant
progress along with our efforts to
bring/demonstrate
alternative/green/carbon footprint
friendly methods of construction, we
received the green light to bring
electrical vehicles here to test and my
twenty-five year old sister in-law had a
stroke, the only apparent cause being
that she has been using Yaz/Yasmin birth
control for one year. The left side of
her body was completely paralyzed. She
is
recovering rapidly now. This May was not
the relaxing month we generally look
forward to and it ended with a group of
our hearts trying to exit the country
through Guayaquil in the middle of
Tungurahua’s eruption.
Our son’s
birthday is on Environment Day, June 5
so we went to the beach, photos
attached. He’s a big fan of elephants,
(Jungle Book, Dumbo, Horton Hears a
Who). Also there’s one of the new lamp
posts. On each lamp post they’ve put a
statue of an animal, penguin, marine
iguana, etc. This one’s a great blue
heron (just kidding about the statues).
Siempre Amor,
Rick, Bere and Roley
|
Family and Friends
Letters 2010.
May
2010
Dear Friends and Family,
We get some odd eggs every now and
again, but the vast majority of the
people that choose to travel with us are
wonderful, patient, curious, generous,
respectful, intelligent, down to earth
people. It’s like a parade of people you
always wanted to get to know passing
through our lives. Everyone comments on
the kind of people that travel with Come
To Galapagos, hotel owners, restaurants,
guides, just the other day Pepo asked
me, “Where do you find these people? Are
you mining a web site, greatpeople.com?
I go to the airport a lot and when I
watch those big birds spitting out
strings of high hoped travelers, I still
worry, am still after five years anxious
that the few who are entrusted to our
care are arriving healthy and relaxed,
that their flights and travel went well,
that their experience with us in the
Galapagos will surpass their
expectations. I wait outside the park
inspection desks, watch the hundred or
so new arrivals and sometimes I play a
game. I ask myself which of all those
visitors would I prefer to have as our
“hearts” as my wife likes to refer to
you all. Almost inevitably I choose
someone like you and that is when you
walk up to me and introduce yourselves.
My wife purchased a CD at a music
store in the US, last time we were
there. She began rifling through the CDs
and presented me with THE one she wanted
to buy, “The greatest hits of Ray
Conniff.”. She had no idea what kind of
music she was purchasing. I didn’t
either, but she was sure she wanted it.
Turns out Ray Conniff is/was some kind
of famous horn player and his “greatest
hits” turn out to be these kind of
chorale covers/remakes of songs of his
era, accented with Ray’s various horns.
The Carpenter’s “Close To You”, “We’ve
Only Just Begun”, odd Beatle’s songs and
of course the most ubiquitous remake
song, “Look What They’ve Done To My
Song”. I envision a group of young men
in ties with crew cuts mixed in with a
group of young women in long polka dot
dresses with twisted blond hair dues
singing their lungs out over an overly
upbeat refrain of “Hey Jude”, all
happening in 1968 when I was twelve
years old. My wife, bless her heart
LOVES this music and it certainly isn’t
available anywhere else in the
Galapagos. So, if you find yourself in
the Galapagos with a hankering to hear
Ray Conniff, now you know where you can
go.
 There
is an estuary between where we live and
our office. We cross a bridge over part
of it on our way. It is not at all
uncommon for me on my way to the office
in the mornings to see one or two blue
herons, a couple of night herons, some
lava herons, pelicans, lava gulls, brown
Noddys, Blue Footed Boobies and sea
lions goofing around and all within less
than half a stone’s throw away from the
route I walk, goofing around without a
care in the world about me. It is so
common place, so unremarkable that I
hardly notice anymore. Sometimes our
hearts, freshly off the plane, having
their first lunch in the restaurant that
is above our office will remark about
this not so unremarkable aspect of
living here. It reminds me of how easily
and unjustly we all take so many things
in our lives for granted. You for
example, you can likely go to a store
and buy any kind of frozen food you
want, have options of five different
kinds of mustards or relishes, produce
from around the world. The town you live
in probably never runs out of cheese, or
gas or toilet paper. So, I’m resolving
to celebrate the wild life daily, the
cheese, the toilet paper, gas for
cooking and further I resolve to throw a
party if we ever have them all together!
Siempre Amor,
Rick, Bere and Roley
|
Family and Friends
Letters 2010.
April
2010
Dear Friends and Family,
I had to spend more than half of March
in Quito, organizing sponsors etc. for
the Come To Galapagos Marathon that will
be held Aug. 1 this year. Going to Quito
for us (as we live on an island with a
small population) is going to the
“city”. Suddenly, there’s traffic and
crime, all kinds of stores and
restaurants, decent hospitals and
dentists. In business meetings I wear
dress slacks, polished shoes and if you
can believe it, ties and business
jackets. I’m not really sure if I need
to. I actually might be more effective
not doing it. Frequently in these types
of meetings I will need to remind them
that I live in the Galapagos. I dress
this way on the odd chance I might
offend someone if I did not or that my
apparel might help our negotiations go
more smoothly. It is a not very
comfortable costume to me. I also do it
out of respect and sympathy because the
men and women I’m talking to have to
dress this way every working day of
their lives.
 Quito is located in
a valley in the Andes, elevation of the
city 9,500 ft. The Andes are big
mountains, out of scale mountains. You
could be sitting, say in a restaurant
looking out at what appear to be distant
hills, maybe a mile away, but those
distant hills rise 8,000 ft. from the
valley floor, are 14,000 high and are
thirty miles away and it practically
never snows there. If you look, say just
a little more to your left or right
there will be a snow capped 22,000 foot
high volcano. The volcanoes all have
cool sounding Inca/Quigua (ketch-u-ah)
names, k-eye’-yom-bay, coat-o-pax’-ee,
chim-bar-ah’-so,
la-mama-ton-gore-ah-goo’-ah or one of my
favorites, wah-wah-pee’-chin-cha, the
“baby volcano Pichincha”, apparently the
smallest volcano in Ecuador, hence the
name. None the less it’s eruption in
1998 threatened to and almost did ruin
the city of Quito The lava flow stopped
just short of populated areas, but of
course there was the ash etc. of a
volcano eruption.
My wife’s
family lives a little outside of Quito
and at night there are fire flies
sparkling around, serenaded by the
crickets which sound like pieces of wood
being knocked together and of course if
you look up there are STARS, 9,000 plus
ft elevation with a view of the stars in
both hemispheres. We can see the Big
Dipper and the Southern Cross. My wife
has five brothers and sisters, all
married or with boyfriends or girl
friends, most have kids and they all get
together every weekend. Every weekend,
all of them unless they’re out of the
country or in the Galapagos. It freaked
me out at first, “Hey, we were all just
together last weekend, don’t you have
anything better to do?” The answer is
yes, they all do. One of them is an
environmental engineer. His job is to
fix environmental disasters with the oil
pipe line between the Amazon and the
coast; this pipe line crosses the above
mentioned mountains. Another is a female
executive in a Latin/macho culture, the
two youngest are just finishing up their
thesis’s, one is graduating with two
degrees. Another is a prominent TV
personality and for them, NO, there is
nothing they have better to do than to
spend time with their family. What they
will do is, we’ll all be hanging around
shooting the shit and someone will have
the great idea, “Let’s dance!” It’s like
eleven AM on a Saturday morning and they
flip on some snappy salsa and everyone
prances around the living room to the
music for a while. As you can imagine
this family CAN dance.
This last
weekend I was there, after we danced for
a while they decided they were hungry or
would be soon so ROAD TRIP! Pile fifteen
people into two cars meant to carry five
and head in one direction or the other
looking for food or something. They
don’t seem to worry too much if everyone
is traveling in the same direction.
There will be cell phone conversations
going on, arguments, agreements reached,
waiting in gas stations while eating ice
cream for the other part of the family
to catch up. All exactly as it should
be, in their minds and mine too, now
that I’ve grown accustomed to it.
While we were driving I was asking
my brother in law about trout farms.
There are lots of trout (introduced) in
the Andes. I had in mind taking our son
to a trout farm someday if there was one
handy. So that was the impetus for
heading up into the mountains (from
9,000 ft. elevation) the far side of
which feeds the Amazon. The other car
was heading in the other direction. The
trout farm had a wonderful restaurant;
it was cold up there, the restaurant
heated by a huge fire place. Unless you
ate them raw you couldn’t get the trout
quicker to your mouth and they were
great, three bucks a plate.
On
the return trip as the sun was setting
my brother in-law (the TV personality)
had an inspiration. He turned off the
main highway and headed up a rutted dirt
road. Cell phones were ringing. The
answer was, “We’re going to Jurassic
Park!” We soon found ourselves at an
ostrich farm. If you’ve ever seen an
ostrich close up you know they are huge
birds. They can run fifty miles an hour
and live to be eighty years old.
Ah-vay’-eh-strues is the Spanish
pronunciation. Our two year old son
immediately identified them as “big
chickens”. We goofed around with their
bowling ball size eggs, bought a kilo of
ostrich meat, took some photos, watched
the sun set with the big chickens and
that was that weekend, not at all
extraordinary for my wife’s family. The
ostrich meat tastes something like a
cross between lamb, pig and cow and that
was tasty and extraordinary for
everybody.
Back at home it is
Eagle Ray mating season. They mount each
other in the shallow water right next to
the beach. Right outside the office on
the beach you’ll see them doing it,
flapping their big wings, one on top of
the other. They’re not shy, they’ll do
it right in front of a crowded Sunday
afternoon beach (yes we have those,
small beach though, there are not a lot
of beaches on these islands) scaring the
be-jesus out of the people wading and
swimming, basically clearing the water,
all the kids screaming “Manta Raya!
Manta Raya!” (manta ray). Of course it
is not a manta ray. We do have plenty of
those here too, though.
Siempre Amor,
Rick, Bere and Roley
|
Family and Friends
Letters 2010.
March
2010
Dear Friends and Family,
The Chili earthquake and resulting
tsunami threat: We were awakened by
friends, “a tidal wave is coming, get
yourselves and everything you value into
the highlands”. So having been through
this before, I went straight to the
office and the internet to get some
reliable information. I saw that an 8.8
earthquake centered off the coast of
Chili had struck. 8.8 is huge, like 500
times the strength of the quake that hit
Haiti. I couldn’t hardly imagine how
there could not be a tsunami coming. Our
office is right on the water, right next
to the Port Captain’s Office. While I
was collecting what computers and things
I could the Port Captain came and asked
me if I would get on the emergency
frequency of his radio and announce in
English that a tidal wave was due to
strike the Galapagos around 10 AM (in
two hours) and that he was advising all
ships to pull anchor and head out to
sea. This was for the benefit of all the
visiting yachts. The cruise ships and
all the navy vessels were already
underway, heading out to sea. Our house
is just a short ways up the street from
the office, maybe 10 ft above sea level
and not fifty yards from the beach. So
we collected everything that could fit
on the cuadron (atv), trying to guess
what we might need most, food, clothing,
passports, wallets, diapers for our son,
medicine. The rest of the town was doing
the same, loading mattresses cases of
Gatorade etc. The police were enforcing
the evacuation of every resident in the
Pueblo. Our good friends Nelly and
Javier were in Guayaquil and Pancheta
was managing the house with all the
guests. Javier’s truck is on its last
legs (burning oil), I knew one tire was
flat and probably the battery was dead.
The plan was for me to go fix the truck
so that it could be driven up into the
highlands with all of the guests and
things they wanted to safe guard.
At
9:30 I had the truck running and we
headed on up, my buddy Pat driving the
truck, me on the cuadron. In the
highlands it was raining. We went to
Javier and Nelly’s house up there and
twenty of us waited around, listening to
the radio and watching the TV for news.
The vast majority of the town was
hanging around the soccer field up in
Progreso in the rain, doing the same
thing. At ten-thirty we received word
that the tidal wave had passed without
doing any damage. At eleven the police
let everyone return to the town. What
was seen in Puerto Ayora (a much narrow
harbor) and confirmed by ships at
Isabela that the ocean had risen and
fallen about a meter three or five times
within the space of a minute, but that
was it. In Puerto Ayora some of the
boats got smashed about a bit because of
the waves coming off the rocks as a
result of the water level changing so
abruptly, but that was it.
Carnaval which happened the weekend of
Feb. 12, 13, 14, 15 and 16 (extended
week end on both ends) is something like
a combination of Labor day, Memorial
Day, Fourth of July and New years eve
all mixed into one and to my mind
something to be avoided, if possible.
Occasionally we receive hearts who
appreciate and join in the celebration,
but generally I’m relieved if we don’t
happen to have groups with us during
this time. The island gets inundated
with Ecuadoreans from the continent.
Normally I can walk or ride down the
street and know everyone I pass, during
these days, the town is so full of
strangers that I feel like a stranger
myself. We are also required to hoist
flags outside our residence and office
during these days, one for San
Cristobal, one for the Galapagos and one
for Ecuador. If we don’t we must pay a
fine of $30 a day and so we are all very
naturally quite patriotic.
The
local people often ask if our son can
speak both “idiomas”, meaning Spanish
and English. He does, speaks almost
exclusively English with me and Spanish
with everyone else. I tell the people
asking that I’m waiting for him to teach
me Spanish which always gets a smile. My
wife often tells me I need to speak
English more with her to improve her
English, that I never correct her when
she isn’t grammatically correct. I’m
personally charmed by her various
exocentric verb tenses etc. I generally
find myself wrestling in the labyrinth
of my Spanish for the best way to
communicate an idea and will say things
like, “I did would wish she has put her
fingers in her ears”, after witnessing
an unintentional insult to the woman in
question’s husband. Of course I had
wanted to say, “I hope she didn’t hear
that”. I just couldn’t at that moment
quite find those words in Spanish. This
is why I get smiles when I talk about my
son teaching me Spanish and I think why
my wife doesn’t correct my grammar
either.
Siempre Amor,
Rick, Bere and Roley
|
Family and Friends
Letters 2010.
February
2010
Dear Friends and Family,
Our satellite antenna fell down last
week, THE satellite antenna for the
entire island. We had no off island
phone service or internet access for
three days with the exception of one
store that had its own satellite hook
up, three computers and two telephones
for the entire island. The antenna had
been on top of a metal tower, which was
held aloft with guy lines. The tower had
rusted through at its base. You would
think that someone might monitor these
details unless you lived here. It
reminded me of how it was when I first
arrived.
When I did first arrive
here, for example the only cheese
available was called “new cheese”, made
from the milk of the local cows, kind of
a cross between cottage and jack cheese.
Now we can, generally, not always, but
generally buy mozzarella cheese and on
occasion “old cheese” that would be
cheddar or Gouda shipped in from the
continent.
It had been a really windy December
and early January for here. The wind
died and it started raining off and on
for about a week, occasionally heavy
rains. The soil here is so expansive
that after a rain if you wait an hour or
so for the sun to make a crust you can
walk around on this cushy foam like
dirt. And the island has turned green
again at the coast. It looks a lot like
spring time almost anywhere.
It
used to be we could move the sea lions
out of our office or away from the
 doorway
by clapping our hands. Then we took to
slapping them with file folders, but
after they got over their fear of the
file folders they found they enjoyed the
way the soft cardboard scraped their
skin and whiskers. Now we push them out
with a broom. Sometimes half the colony
will be camped out in front of the
office and you have to herd them off.
One cool thing though is that if you’re
in the office with the glass doors shut,
they post up, leaning against the glass
and you can really study them from
behind the glass, their whiskers, ears,
the way their feet look like hands, five
digits, they have finger prints.
One of the advantages of living here is
not having to pay admission on Saturday
afternoons. See attached photo of
our son at the zoo. You’re not supposed
to touch the animals here. He doesn’t
really want to touch that iguana anyway;
he wants to put it or at least its tail
in his mouth.
The municipality
set up a box for donations to help the
earth quake victims in Haiti. On a boom
box next to the donations box there was
a speech with inspirational background
music playing over and over again about
how great Galapagenians are, “truly
world citizens”, etc. etc. I bet a lot
of people would have put some change in
that box if they had even the faintest
glimmer of hope that it would ever reach
Haiti. I bet quite a few people did
anyway.
I was speaking to a
professor at Clemson University on Skype
the other day. We were talking about the
school and campus we are trying to build
(raise the bar on the education level
here,
see attached K - 12 Document). We
had been talking about kids and what we
do in our lives as parents and he quoted
a friend of his, “We do not inherit the
earth from our fathers, we borrow it
from our sons.”
Siempre Amor,
Rick, Bere and Roley
|
Family and Friends
Letters 2010.
January
2010
Dear Friends and Family,
In Ecuador we celebrate the end of the
year, not the beginning of a new one. We
celebrate another year survived
 with
all its trials, tragedies and triumphs.
It is a time for reflection on the past
year more than a celebration/looking
forward to what may come. We say happy
end of the year until we’re a day or so
into January when people begin saying
happy new year. We make these “munecas”
(life size dolls) with card board, wood
and paper mache. And then you write
notes and pin them to the muenecas,
notes of all the things you are glad to
be finished with in the year that
passed. This year was the first in
several where we weren’t up to our eye
balls with guests and so were able to
enjoy the holiday. We had a friend
visiting from Santa Cruz who had had a
less than joyful experience with a
“latin lover” and so the “theme” or
character of our muneca was one of a
macho latin man. It had notes on it,
“You know you want me”, and “Don’t you
think I’m sexy?” We all made our private
lists and pinned them on the muneca. Our
neighbor’s mother had a bad year with
cancer and died. So just before
midnight, all of her kids kicked the
shit out of their muneca before setting
it on fire. We didn’t really feel the
need to beat up our muneca so we just
doused it in diesel and burnt it along
with all the things we were glad to be
done with (see attached photo). So Happy
End of the Year! I hope it was a good
year for you all. It was for us, chalk
full of life, tragedies, calamities,
triumphs and tender moments.
One
treasured memory of this year will be of
our son with his whale vertebrae. He had
five. He uses them like hammers so
they’re getting a little worn down on
the ends. He calls them his “bones”.
Whale vertebrae are shaped like a “T”
with a round one inch thick disc
connecting the top and bottom lines. In
this case the vertebrae came from a baby
whale and the bottom of the “T” was
twelve inches long and the two end sides
about eight inches each which he would
smash into what ever he felt like
smashing them into as if the bottom of
the “T” were the handle of a sledge
hammer. Then he would move off like a
triumphant warrior. Nothing quite like
the sight of a two year old merrily
carting around whale vertebrae half his
size.
There was a TV program in
the US, “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire”.
We now have it here in Ecuador with the
exact same props. music etc., except the
title is “Who Wants To Get Rich”. The
host is an Ecuadorean TV personality, an
equivalent of Regis. The questions are
specific to Ecuador and the cash has
been down scaled to our economy.
On San Cristobal we have door to door
salesmen as I remember coming to our
house in the US as a kid. They come
around selling insurance, vacuum
cleaners, jewelry, etc. I’ve been
waiting for an encyclopedia salesman,
but so far the closest thing has been a
cook book sales man.
Towels get
used a good deal here. Almost every day
at least once we are in the ocean,
usually more than that and then of
course there are showers at the end of
the day etc. Good towels, like good
sheets are expensive. New
expensive towels have a kind of greasy
feel to me, I suppose the idea is that
they’re soft, but they don’t suck up
water very well. We have two really good
towels that were given to us as wedding
presents. Actually we have a bunch that
my mom has passed down to us over the
years. They have some age on them and
are showing it, but put a little age on
one of these beauties and their true
value shines. They last practically
forever and after they reach the point
where the greasy softness wears off,
they truly function as a towel should.
You hate to retire one of these fine
servants. Now that we have been married
four years, the wedding present towels
are coming into their own. Finally, you
can take them off the laundry line
(there are only clothes dryers at the
two laundries here) and get a sun
soaked, warm, luxuriously thirsty towel.
I reserve them exclusively for my son
when he gets out of his bath. These are
big towels, wider than he is tall. I
wrap him up, swing him into my arms and
head for the bed where we’ll goof around
with the pillows for a while before I
help him get into his pajamas. Imagine
being bathed by and at the end swooped
up by a benevolent giant (your dad),
swooped and wrapped up in an expensive,
sun warmed towel.
In Spanish a
“grabber” is a telephone answering
machine. Most people, after their
weddings enjoy “moon honey” and if you
want to tell someone to “get off their
high horse”, you tell them to “get off
the cloud”.
Siempre Amor,
Rick, Bere and Roley
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CST#2083876-40 |
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