Breathe!

Those sleepless nights were all worth it, I guess, since everything is going to work out in the end - I´m heading to the Galapagos next week! I guess some people would look at those sleepless nights as a waste since it all worked out in the end, but there´s nothing I can do about them now and it makes having something set (or sorted as my Antipodean or British friends would say) sweeter. And I am definitely needing a break from classes. Six weeks of Spanish in a row is a lot and I was about thisclose this morning to hating every Spanish speaker for already knowing, and speaking, a language that has many things that are a pain to memorize. Of course it isn´t their fault but I feel like I need to take it out on someone, and the inventor of the Spanish language isn´t around. And I´ve also been spending way too much time on the internet trying to find a trip to the Galapagos rather than updating my blog or exploring the city. At this moment I don´t really know what to do with myself! And there´s still decisions to be made about staying here or going to Bolivia etc...Don´t misunderstand, Bolivia is not close by. I´d say by bus from Cuenca it is about 64 hours from here of driving time alone. But that´s still closer than it is from NYC.

I´m going on the boat I wanted, an 8 day trip including a visit to an island where there´s a chance to snorkel with hammerhead sharks! For some of you that might be a terrifying prospect, but for scuba divers, seeing a shark is like finding the holy grail (I think. I don´t really know what the holy grail is - my knowledge is limited to what they say in The DaVinci Code, and I´ve never seen any Monty Python). Also, I´m going with another student at the school. She is from California and has been here for 5 weeks. So it is even nicer to be going with someone I know rather than sharing with a stranger, which I wouldn´t have minded either. But after 6 weeks of sort of being on my own it is a nice thought to be taking the bus to Guayaquil (the largest city in Ecuador, the commercial center, the Johannesberg or Frankfurt of Ecuador) with someone rather than doing it on my own. I think I want to come back to Cuenca afterwards, although there´ll hardly be any students here. There´s a university graduation in the family that week and I think I should only do a week off, since I´m not expecting I´ll actually do much studying next week. While it sounds like Guayaquil gets a bad rap, it has two interesting sites, the Malecon (a rejuvinated riverfront) and an area of restored houses called Las Penas. The waterfront might be like the Durban waterfront (I´m not going to be surprised if every local we meet warns us to keep out of anywhere besides the waterfront, unless that kind of paranoia is unique to South Africa).

And then the Galapagos, and I don´t even know what to expect there, except that I think it is the pefect time to be going - the end of the rainy, warm season (I´m looking forward to some warmth, since in Cuenca I only get it for about 25 minutes a day, when I walk home after classes). I´ll need to clear off my memory card before I go, but again it is nice that I´m going with someone I know - they might be the first pictures I have of this trip that I´m actually in!

And I have all kinds of updating to do on events here. Soon, now that I don´t have to look for Galapagos trips all afternoon.