“The time has come,” the walrus said. ”To talk of many things: of shoes and ships and sealing wax, of cabbages and kings…”

Only fifteen years ago San Cristobal was a small fishing village located on an island six hundred miles off the coast of Ecuador. Electricity was provided only for a few hours a day. Now the Pueblo has grown somewhat and is transitioning from an economy based on the non renewable resource of over fishing to the renewable economy of tourism. The transition has been slow, but steady. It’s a small town, population four thousand. When a letter or package comes for you, you will likely hear about it from a neighbor or friend who was at the post office or you might receive a phone call. There are only four changing digits in the phone numbers here. This is the community you’ll be entering. Below you’ll find biographies of the people who will be caring for you and who very likely you’ll get to care for too. Please allow me the permission to translate and edit their biographies as presented to us for this web page.
 

The Guides:
Galapagos National Park Guides must complete an intensive three months of study over seen by the national park. They must be bilingual and have good people skills. Most of the guides work on the cruise ships for as long as three months at a time, working with as many as thirty tourists daily. It is difficult work which keeps them away from their family and friends. We have been able to select the pick of the crop of these guides for you because the working conditions are far better with our tours. They get the chance to work from their homes most days, work with much smaller groups of people in a flexible, less structured environment, we’re nice people to work for and the guides can see their work not only benefiting the visitor, but also their Pueblo and islands as opposed to the owners of the cruise ships most of whom have little or no connection to the Galapagos other than as a source of income.


Fernando Sanchez 25 years old
Fernando’s grandfather opened The Cabanas Don Jorge in 1965, before there were paved streets or electricity. He’s University educated, speaks good English, has been working as a guide for the past 3 years and plans to continue in the tradition of his family here. “I am looking forward to showing you all the wonders of our islands”. He’s the one squatting in the photo.
 

Tati Bucheli 27 years old
Arrived in the Galapagos in 1988 after the death of both her parents, she and her two brothers were raised here by her aunt and uncle. She has a degree in tourism, worked as a guide here for a couple years and spent a couple years working as a guide at The Grand Canyon National Park (USA) in an exchange program of National Park guides. Now she is working here again and is engaged and looking forward to marriage and raising her family here in Galapagos. “I believe in God in the way of love, family, good feelings and nature. This is how I am.”

Habitations:
There are no large hotels in the Galapagos. Thank God. What does exist are small family run Bed and Breakfasts or “pensiones”. The rooms are clean, comfortable, air conditioned in the warm season, many have small kitchens. Unlike many B&Bs in the US, they are designed with as much of a concern for privacy as for sharing cultures. All have gorgeous views of either the bay or the sea. The principle ones are located in town. The best thing about these B&Bs, after the view is the people who run them.
 

Jaqueline Vasquez 40ish
Owner of the original Casa Blanca, the nicest B&B on the island. Has lived her entire life in San Cristobal, raising her three daughters as a single mother while managing the property. She and her brother are THE artists of the island, famous for murals and drawings. The property is a varitable art gallery, both within and without. “I believe in the family, my work, God and the hearts that come to visit.”

The Family Agama
Javier Agama was literally born in a barn here in the highlands. A dedicated family man, currently he is the Chief of Institutional Services of INGALA, the state agency in charge of conservation and sustainable development of the Galapagos. His wife Nelly runs the best pharmacy in town and handles their B&B property. They have four children, Roberto 12, Analia 11, Ivan 7 and Andres 3. If you have the luck of staying at their place you will also have the joy of knowing their wide smiles and open hearts. “Our family deeply enjoys sharing time with people from different cultures.”
 

Restaurants:
San Cristobal is not famous for its quesene. Ecuador as a whole has a rather bland pallet. That being said, you will likely see the lobster or fresh fish you are about to eat being carried into the restaurant from the boat as you watch the sunset over the bay. Fish as you can imagine are a large part of our diet. Breakfasts are eggs, toast, fruit, juice and coffee. Maybe some banana pancakes. Lunch tends to be chicken, fish or beef with vegetables and rice. The town closes up for lunch from 12-2.
 

Taxis:
Taxis are the way we get around. Very few people own cars, costs a buck to go anywhere in the town. The taxi drivers know of and about everyone, kinda like a gossip column on wheels. On one of my first trips here to San Cristobal, I tried to give a taxi driver directions (six of the streets have names, but no one uses them), he turned to me and said, “You mean the house of the professor with the open eyes” (the professor who sees everything).
 

Fisherman:
The fishermen of San Cristobal have seen their world change radically in the past fifteen years. There was a period where they were all making a fair amount of money selling sea cucumbers to the Japanese, until they fished them close to extinction. They had similar success/failure with lobsters. Now with strong laws, the fish harvest is closely managed. They are in the process of moving away from reliance on the non renewable industry of fishing toward reliance on tourism. It is a particularly endearing experience to spend a half day fishing with them in their time honored techniques and continue to their home to dine on the days catch. They’ve been working with gringo tourists now for a number of years, refining their abilities to manage gringo tastes and gastronomical weaknesses. If you want to touch the reality of the Galapagos, to do something to help the future of the islanders and the islands themselves, this is another way. When you return home, you’ll spend as much time talking about this experience as you will about any of the many animal stories you will have.

Angel Quimis 35 years
(If you have the time read the account of one of our personal experiences with this man at the end of this page)

“My father loved the sea, but I was never able to live together with him. My name is Angel Quimis. At seventeen I arrived here with hardly the clothes on back, but with a large suitcase of dreams to make my living in my father’s footsteps as a fisherman/ocean artist. I first worked as a hooka diver (very dangerous work) and fell in love with the enchantments of the sea. Soon after I fell in love a second time with my wife, a beautiful, strong woman who studied in the University and still held strong in her heart the history and love of these islands. We have three wonderful children's. For them, I’m thinking of the future, looking for some way that they may know the enchantments of the sea, keep these islands first in their hearts and have the opportunity to be more than I have managed to be.”

Angel has a dive master’s license, knows the currents, dangers and wonders of these islands as very few do. Their home they open to you.


Carlos Ricaute 60ish
First arrived here when he was eighteen months old shortly after the end of world war two. For years he was the president of the fishing co-op. Now he’s spearheading the effort to help bring about the necessary changes in the fishing community itself and the legal/political problems that arise. “We must begin by getting over the egoism that separates us from ourselves, our fellow man and our God.”
 

The Inter-Island Tourist Boat People:
These are the families somewhat ahead of the fisherman in tourism services. They are the people we use for most of the boat tours primarily because they have better boats and better English.


Manuel (Manolo) Yepez 27 years old
Native Galapagueno of a fisherman family. One of the first fisherman to work with tourists, fishing, surfing, sight seeing and diving. Mr. Reliable. Good natured, quiet, hard working, forward thinking. If he were raised in New York he’d be some super executive. I’m sure he’s happier here. “How can I help you?”

Timoteo Cooney 35 years old
Originally from New Zealand, super diver, married a local gal, returned to New Zealand, picked fruit to save enough money to start his diving business here in San Cristobal. Galapakiwi is the premier dive tour operation here in quality of equipment and services. Good mate. Featured in the video clip on this web site. “What’s up, mate? Come on!”

Farms and Ranches
The original colonists of the Galapagos survived not only by fishing, but also by farming the highlands and many still do. Lumber and bamboo farms, coffee farms, fruit and vegetable, live stock, milk, eggs. They face many challenges, lack of water, struggles against introduced species of plants and feral animals and competition in the market place from goods shipped from the mainland. The farms are a fascinating place to visit or spend the night outside of town and the farmers themselves, salt of the earth with a smile and sense of humor.

Finca Las Merceditas (Farm of Mercies)
On the far side of the island, over looks the distant sea. Milk cows, meat cows, chickens, pigs, donkeys, sugar cane, bananas, bamboo, guavas, oranges, papayas, guayabas, mora, tomato trees (you gotta see), tomatoes, pineapple, misc. greens. For all of that it’s a very tranquil place run by the family Villa.

Angel Villa is an agricultural engineer specializing in natural resource management. He currently works for INGALA, the state run organization in charge of conservation and sustainable development of the Galapagos. His wife Mercy, works as a teacher at the high school and takes care of their three incredibly polite and well behave children. Fernando, 15, wants to be a veterinarian, Maria, 8, a doctor and Angel David, 6 wants to be an army man.

Who You Gonna Call? Story of Angel and the Japanese Tourists:

Late one holiday afternoon last year, my wife Bere (Berry) got a cell phone call (we do have those here now, internet access too.) from a friend of ours who was working as a guide on a tour ship. Seems there was a very sick passenger. They were just off the coast of a neighboring island and the Captain of the ship would not turn it around and return to San Cristobal, citing his concerns for the “schedule” and his other passengers. They were heading even further away from “civilization” and the guide was rightly very concerned for the tourist and had no one else to turn to. No one had answered the phone at the port or the naval base or the police station. It was “the day of the dead”, big party day here so she called Bere. At first Bere couldn’t find anyone able to go, either they had problems with their boat or were too drunk. She was finally able to find Angel Quimis sober fisherman friend, with a good boat. It was getting late for the two hour boat ride out to Espanola. The return trip was going to be in the dark anyway. So Bere sets out with Angel, arrives at the ship at sundown. Turns out the sick passenger is Japanese and has six fellow Japanese travelers. They would not be separated. Insisting everyone had to go. The fishing boat was great for three or four people, but not for nine, particularly with the swell that was growing and the wind that was blowing and they wanted to take all their luggage. In the end the captain of the cruise ship left the nine people in the small fishing boat as the light faded, turned to starboard and made way for Floriana. What followed was a three hour return trip in an over loaded boat in large seas in the dark. This boat had no lights and no compass. Angel did have a flashlight and to save the batteries he would turn it on only for a brief instant every fifteen minutes or so, shinning it out on the water. What he was doing was, he knew the swell was approaching south, south west, the wind at 15 degrees south of that, that he would intercept the current confluence at about an hour after setting out, that the first current would set him a kilometer south and the second as it was running that week about a ½ kilometer north east, so he needed to keep the bow of the boat at an angle to the swell and hope all his guesses about current drift, wind drift and his guess how the over loaded boat was handling would be right. Everyone in the boat was vomiting with sea sickness. The Japanese tourists spoke very little English and no Spanish. Three interminable hours later, the Angel enters the channel to the port in a direct line, never even having to change the direction of the boat from the time he set course. That’s seamanship in any sea, but in the Galapagos that’s super human. The Galapagos were named Las Islas Encanchatas, the enchanted islands by the early Spanish because they seemed to change position and were often not to be found where they were located on maps. Even when they were sailing within the archipelago, sometimes it would be difficult to find an island that just the other day they had sailed from. What was actually happening was the various changing ocean currents that meet here, The Humbolt, the Cromwell and the Equatorial all made it difficult to navigate with any certainty. The dominant current would change with the seasons and its strength varied also, year to year.

In the end, the Japanese tourist recovered in a hospital in Quito. The captain of the cruise ship was fired. The guide now works for us and Angel, he’s one of the fishermen we trust to take good care of you.

Special Ambassadors
These are the people that help extend our hand from the Galapagos to you.

First and foremost, are the people at Webtrix.com, without whose help you wouldn’t be reading these words. We’d like to take this time to formally welcome them into the Family Galapagos (and they thought they were only doing their job). Their expertise, patience and concern for the quality in their product made this web page what it is.

Another is all of our previous guests who may have pointed you in our direction. To all of them we’d like to give “saludos” and a wish to see them again soon.

Another is all of the American side of our family and friends. To them we’d like to send a hug and a kiss and the promise that we will be in the US at least for every other Christmas.

And finally there’s my high school buddy Paul White and his wife, Lynn who are working on an out reach program, to get you and all of us connected.