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| 07 February 2003 God looks out for those that make him laugh. Tonight, we are enjoying the cool breezes from the terrace of Hotel Lirio del Mar as we look out at the strings of lights from the boats dancing upon the calm bay of Puerto Ayora, Isla Santa Cruz, Galapagos. Tonight, God is laughing. Yesterday, we flew from Lima to Quito, Ecuador, where we wanted to catch a flight to the Galapagos. Upon arriving, the friendly airport attendant pointed to two airlines, AeroGal and Tame, indicating both flew to the Galapagos Archipelago. We chose AeroGal; God snickered. The lady at the counter checked her flight schedule, and sure enough, they had flights on the right days for us, so we bought our tickets. This morning, we were off to San Cristobal Island. When we got off the plane in the Galapagos, our first clue that something was amiss was that there were only four tourists on the plane, us and a couple of surfers. The rest of the plane was Galapagenos, as locals are called. God saw our look of mild confusion and let out a chuckle. Outside the airport, we looked for the bus to the ferry, which our guidebook told us to find. Nada. We asked a policeman in our terrible broken spanish for the ferry to Puerto Ayora, “Donde esta bota transita el Puerto Ayora?” but he seemed confused. We thought it was our Spanish. It wasn’t. We were on the wrong Island! We should have flown to Baltra, but that was the other airline! The inter-island ferry was out for maintenance on the mainland and wouldn’t be back for a few weeks. This was getting fun. The policeman looked long and hard at his watch, thinking visibly. Then with a look of “A-Ha!”, he quickly flagged a cab and piled us in, speaking very quickly to the cabbie in a long string of sing-song Spanish that we translated as “It’s now 1:55. There’s a boat leaving at 2:00. These “loco turistas” would like to get on it.” Off we went, bouncing through the town, quickly getting to the docks, where our cabbie spun around in front of the port captain’s office, flagged down an officer, and explained that these two silly tourists just arrived and wanted to leave already. The officer smiled and pointed to the boat in the harbor. God was waiting. Off again to the dock, our cabbie flagged down a panga (small boat), pointing out to the large modern yacht gleaming in the afternoon sun at the outer edge of the harbor. Kim relaxed; the yacht was gorgeous, sleek white wrapped around limo black windows. Things were looking great. As we puttered across the harbor, I noticed the panga veer suddenly to port, changing our course right for the hulking rusty green supply ship overloaded with boxes and cartons of goods for the islands. It dawned on me that this was our ride, the supply ship “Virgen de Monserratte”. As I told Kimberly to turn around and check out our “ride”, her first thought was that it must be the trash ship, so overgrown were the piles strewn about the decks. I could hear the faint sound of a deep belly laugh coming down from above. God was laughing – hard! The panga driver pulled up to the ship, calling up to the crew with strings of language that obviously relayed once more our lack of proper planning, and someone from above stuck their head out the portal and motioned us aboard. Kim crawled up the ladder first. She looked nervous. I couldn’t tell whether it was the thought of her too-heavy backpack pulling her off the ladder to drown at the bottom of the bay or having to sit on a box of bananas in the sun for the next few hours. Before I could ask, we were aboard and crawling between crates of empty beer bottles, past sacks of onions and oranges, over stacks of rebar, and around boxes of every imaginable size stacked in neat piles that would have made the ship’s rats proud. We were aboard our saviour, the Virgen de Monserratte, and we were on our way to Puerto Ayora. God hasn’t laughed so good in a long time. The Monserratte is owned by Octavio and Laura Santos, who just happened to be on board. They invited us into the main cabin area, where we sat on comfortable seats of cracked green vinyl, smiling at the soft breeze cooling our sweaty bodies, looking out at the plain pine doors and paneling which are common in working ships. Laura loves the chance to practice her English, so we had a wonderful conversation about their businesses and supplying goods to the islands. Octavio just got back from Los Angeles, where they sell bananas to Dole from their two farms on the mainland. For those in the Los Angeles area reading this, you have most likely tasted a Santos banana. Dole definitely has a good thing going. Octavio gets $3 for every one of the 2000 boxes they ship each week to LA. At the docks in LA, Dole gets $23. When we asked how come they got so little, we played charades until we worked out the word perishable. When the fruit is ready, they either sell it or throw it away. With Dole as their only major buyer, they do as well as they can. Laura is a lawyer and handles all the human resources litigation for their companies, working mostly on severance packages and wrongful termination suits. She likes to make sure she is understood in her broken English, so she repeated a few times, “I am a law-yer, not a Li-ar.” Laura explained that Monserratte is one of five ships that bring out everything the islands use, from large items like cars to small items like playing cards and toothpaste. You name it, it was probably on board. Looking out over the ship, you could begin to picture life on the islands – gray PVC pipe, rebar, oxygen tanks, chicken wire, and lumber piles destined for some new construction. Five-gallon rusty yellow propane bottles stacked in piles, ready for delivery to the restaurants and homes, providing the most widely used source of cooking fuel. Pallets loaded with small televisions, radios and walkmans. Boxes of plantanos (a type of banana), potatos and other fruits are tucked alongside stacks of soda bottles, all ready to feed the growing population of the islands. In between these stacks, there were hundreds of yellow plastic crates holding empty brown beer bottles. The Santos are the official importer of Pilsener cervesa from the mainland and the quantity of empty beer crates being sent back for refill showed how seriously the islanders took their relaxation. There were also piles of goods for families. Big bicycles and little tricycles, dining room sets and beds, (one with a pillow taped right to it!) sofas and love seats, all ready for a new home. Later in the afternoon, the cook brought up some food for the stowaways - rice and skillet-fried platanos, beef and deep-fried potato wedges, all washed down with ice-cold pineapple juice. Our first true Ecuadorian meal. I highly recommend the “restaurant” here, it was delicious. As the sun settled lower in the sky, we moved up to the bridge deck, where we watched for tiburons (sharks) with Luna, the electrician’s son. It was a beautiful day. As we pulled into Puerto Ayora, to a hot setting sun, we were excited to be in the Galapagos, and richer in our knowledge that every Pilsener cervesa we were going to drink on this island came here the same way we did, on the decks of the Virgen de Monserratte, God’s guardian angel for wayward tourists. |
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