Visiting Galapagos islands included all the beautiful views from your typical national geographic documentary. I had the opportunity to see and swim with sea lions, sea turtles, penguins, sharks, eagle ray’s, an octopus, and of course the blue-footed booby along with massive amounts of fish! I also experienced the phenomenon of El Niño with it’s warm currents while snorkeling.

If you’ve been keeping up with my previous blogs you may know about my knee injury. If you aren’t sure what I’m talking about, I partially tore my ACL and had been immobilized until a week before Galapagos.

I tried my absolute best to do as much as I could in Galapagos but with the snorkeling and the increased walking my knee needed a break. Therefore, I had to sit out on a day-long hike to the craters on the Isabella island.

During my day off I followed a local as they ran errands. This experience was very unique. Applying what I’ve learned, I did what I do best, and I talked to locals! I experienced the non-tourist side of Galapagos and had the privilege to learn about prominent social issues.

Through conversations with tour guides, the tour agent, who I spent the day with, and political candidates, I quickly became aware of social and political needs in the islands.

Concerns about the increase in drug usage and accessibility, lack of health care facilities, and of education opportunities for youth were at the top of the list for the locals I met. They also mentioned a need for a balance between conservation of natural life, and tourism.

With the elections around the corner the candidates of the Galapagos were very active. The candidate I spoke with was a businesswoman, who showed me how public work wasn’t being done or completed in front of her property because she was an opponent to the current government.

I saw a fence that was a city project that had been mostly completed but stopped right before her business. She told me they stopped working on that part when she announced her candidacy. I quickly learned just how personal and extreme campaigning could get. They told me a story where a government employee took a photo with an opponents daughter and they were fired from their position for being disloyal.

Once again, as I experience everyday in continental Ecuador, the people of Galapagos were open to political conversations and discussing social issues important to them. The people’s passion and willingness to genuinely care about their community was my favorite part of the islands. Every tour guide, driver, sailor, captain, and business person I met was proud of their community, their home and their work.

The islands citizens are happy to share their home, but their priority is protecting themselves and their islands. Defending and conserving them from big corporations that are money hungry. Tourists that disregard rules and the increasing number of tourists can be challenging to the way of life on the island. One situation that really stuck-out to me was seeing a dying sea lion. All that was left was skin and bones on a tired and hungry sea lion, who had been touched by a human and therefore unrecognized by their mother.

Spending a week in Galapagos I learned about the islands and their political, social, and environmental ways of life. I wish I could’ve spent more time on the islands but I’m happy I got to know so many local people from the islands and tourists!