Random Bits of Venice Part I

DAY 1 5/31/07- And so it begins…after crunching in a few errands, and eating one last boloco burrito, I was off to logan airport to Venice!  It was a longish flight, but fortunately there was no one sitting next to me on my connection to Amsterdam, and I was able to watch 2 movies from a wide selection on my own personal screen.  I watched 'Romeo and Juliet' the 1994 version, which I felt obligated to see because I was going to Italy, the setting of the original, and Freedom Writers.

After a short wait in Amsterdam, where I was nearly driven crazy by first the price of a small bottle of water, €2.50! Second, because my departure gate was near the end of a moving walkway that kept on saying "Mind your step" whenever someone approached the end. I then connected to Venice, and waited several hours in the Marco Polo airport for Nisha to arrive.  At first, I played a game of deciphering between who was a tourist versus a native Italian.  This was mainly based on attire, sense of fashion, and tightness of the outfit.  In the meantime, some random questions popped into my head.  Why is it that a lot of older women adopt the short haircut style?  Why don't public restrooms in airports have doors?  Why does KLM always give me a gross egg sandwich? 

Before I time to deeply think about these questions, Nisha arrived, and that's when our Italian adventure really began.  Our Challenge? To arrive at CVN before they closed for the evening so that we could get the keys to the flat and had somewhere to stay.  We caught a bus to the island of Venezia, and arrived at Piazzale Roma.  From there we tried to catch a taxi to San Samuele, the location of CVN, but that was actually impossible since Venice is made up of numerous canals, making it impassible for anything other than feet and boats.  So we bought tickets for the Vaporetto, the form of public transportation here, a large ferry boat that services the city.  We hopped on the #1 vaporetto which is like the #1 bus to Harvard – slow, crowded, and stops frequently.  Soon we arrived at the San Angelo stop, which the closest we could get to San Samuele, but unfortunately we were on the wrong side of the boat to easily get off.  I made my way over to the exit, but as I turned my head to see if Nisha was still behind me, a crowd of people started pushing their way off.  I became part of a roadblock since I was preventing people from getting onto the boat, but at the same time I couldn't get past the people pushing towards me.  Really, it was a bunch of elderly Italian woman yelling 'Descender?!?' at me, and me being too freaked out to understand. They were asking, or perhaps yelling, for me to get off.  The vaporetto man kindly assisted us in lifting our bags onto the dock after many confused looks, and we were still on our way to CVN. 

We had no idea what time Italians stop working, but it was past 5, and we were worried that would wouldn't be able to find a place to sleep. After lugging our bags over bridges, we found the double green doors of the office, which is next to some really strange store.  We made it in time though, and conveniently, the real estate office was right next door.  After settling into our flat which was on the first floor in a neighborhood no more than 3 minutes away and complete with a bedroom, couch, bathroom, and kitchen, we went out to explore the grand city of Venice.  We had a dinner of plain pizza in San Samuele square before passing out for about 13 hours.  When we wake up it was 1:45pm the next day, which I originally thought was a mistake, but it wasn't!

Venice at last!

Day 7 - Twin Craters & Guayaquil, Ecuador

On the way to the airport we stopped at the Gemelos, which are a pair of craters about 30 meters deep as a result of a volcanic explosion or because of magma chambers inside earth, it is not completely known how they formed.

We flew back to Guayaquil, and then had free time to explore the major city in Ecuador. The city had lots of pretty architecture, and had renovated the waterfront in 2000. The waterfront had everything - restaurants, shops, boats, outlook points, sculptures, inspiring poems, and more.

But also right across the street, was the contraband market which was surprisingly organized into food, pants, shirts, toiletries, video games, and music sections. Everything was so cheap, but there was also the feeling that someone was about to steal your money and run away into the maze of illegal goods.

Day 6 - Wild Tortugas

Its one thing to see tortoises being raised from eggs to full-grown adults and another to look for them in the wild brush. We took a long bus ride to the highlands, and saw about 10 tortoises. They were in the mud, in the trail, and hiding in the bushes. They didn't really mind humans, but if you came too close they pulled their heads back into their shell and made a hissing noise.

On the way back from wild tortuga searching, we stopped at the recycling center. They had a pretty well-done display about recycling and how it's done on the islands, but it really should have been displayed in a more prominent place like in town.

After dinner we were treated to folk music and dancing. The group had drums, bongos, recorders, blowpipes, singing, and overall it was interesting to hear another culture's music.

Day 5 - Charles Darwin Research Station

Today we went to the Charles Darwin Research Station. There they are trying to restore the Tortoise population after humans slaughtered them for oil and introduced species that compete for the same food as the Tortoises. Tortoise eggs are incubated, and then juvenile tortoises are raised until they ready to be released into the wild. There were tortoises of so many different sizes at the station. I read that the tortoises only move .16 miles/hour. It appeared that the babies moved faster than the older tortoises!

Then a representative from the station talked to use about what exactly the Charles Darwin Foundation does and then answered our questions. Later in the afternoon we talked to city officials about how they maintain the town.

In the evening we went to a very sketchy ferris wheel, which was a complete surprise, I never would have thought that there would be a ferris wheel there! But looking back, I could picture the headlines "30 MIT STUDENTS DIE ON FERRIS WHEEL IN 3RD WORLD COUNTRY". The ferris wheel used horribly smelling diesel fuel, rotated on a normal care tire, and was powered by an ordinary-looking engine. A bunch of us got on the ferris wheel, 3 to a tea cup (which was the theme of the seats), it got through one rotation and stopped working. The tea cups also happened to spin, so everyone started spinning around in their tea cups, and you could just see the metal structure of the ferris wheel shaking side to side. We were stuck up at the top of the ferris wheel for 10 minutes, which was nice because we got to see a high-up view of the town. Also to get to the ferris wheel we had to walk through the more residential part of town which was a nice change. When the ferris wheel started running again, it rotated quickly, and when I got off I was dizzy from all the spinning and overwhelming diesel smell.

Day 4 - Tortuga Bay, Lava Tubes

Today, we went to the real Tortuga Bay, which was a pleasant, calm bay surrounded by mangrove trees. The first time we went to Tortuga Bay, we were actually swimming in the rough pacific ocean, that apparently had a dangerous undertow. But the sand was so beautiful and soft, and the water was equally amazing. It was nice to relax in such a paradise. Again we saw Marine Iguanas everywhere.

In the afternoon we took a bus ride to the lava tunnels. The Galapagos Islands has many active volcanoes, and when volcanoes erupt the lava flows and the outer part of the stream gets cold and hardens, but the liquid magma within continues to flow. When the lava stops flowing, empty tubes are left behind. This is what happened in Santa Cruz several times, leaving an island full of lava tunnels. The tunnels are very dark, in fact when the entire group turned off all their flashlights, we were literally blind.

Day 3 - Bartolome

After rising early to take a 2.5 boat ride to Bartolome, we were treated with an afternoon of great views and snorkeling. We hiked to the summit of the island which gave us a nice panorama of everything in site. Things seen include: the double sided beach of Bartolome (where we later went snorkeling), volcanic towers rising out of the water, and Santiago in the distance. There was little vegetation on the island. It was cool to see the island and surrounding area in many different perspectives. What you see from the boat, compared to what you see from atop the island, to what you see when snorkeling are all very different perspectives of the same exact scene. While snorkeling, the water was perfectly clear, so I just dove right into schools of fish to take pictures with my underwater camera. There were also two penguins perching on a rock and sea lions. Sometimes it was hard to believe I was actually in the Galapagos, right up close to animals, with a beautiful backdrop, but I was

In the evening, I went to this yummy bakery that sold chocolate bread. I also tried a chocolate-coconut pastry. During the course of the trip I also tried different kinds of ice cream. Technically we weren't supposed to eat food from the restaurants because we could get sick. After all, you can't drink the tap water there, and are forced to drink bottled water. I got sick anyways toward the end of the trip.

Day 2 - North Seymour, Las Grietas

Today we took a boat over to North Seymour, and viewed the variety of wildlife unique to the Galapagos. It was amazing because all the animals were right in front of us, unafraid of humans, lazing the day away. Although we had to stay 6 feet away from the animals, and on the path, the animals could approach us. It felt really special to be the only group of people on the island, surrounded by animals, and the water. There is actually a limit to the number of people that can visit the islands per year, which is noticable. I have visited numerous national parks and felt that my experience was dimished by the hordes of visitors. To feel completely isolated on such historic islands was such an amazing feeling. I saw blue-footed boobies performing their characteristic mating dance, land and marine iguanas, sea lions, Magnificent and Great Frigatebirds.

Male frigatebirds have a gular sac that inflates like a giant red balloon during their mating period to attract females. Plus, while walking the trail, a humongous land iguana walked practically right over my feet!

In the afternoon, we returned to Santa Cruz and visited Las Grietas. It was a slightly rocky hike to Las Grietas, a swimming area in the middle of a rocky gorge. Unfortunately, by the end of the day I had severe burns on my shoulders. Even with my frequent application of sunscreen, I had missed a some spots, and considering the strength of the sun in the Galapagos, by the end of the day my shoulders were bright red. This turned out to be very painful a few days later.

Galapagos Day 1

Today we flew from Ecuador to Baltra, Galapagos. Getting off the plane it was incredibly hot, and then I learned that the sun is 4 times stronger in the Galapagos than in Boston because of its proximity to the Equator. Baltra was very barren and desertlike. We then took a short bus ride Canal Itabaca, which was our first glimpse of the paradise that most of us were expecting. The water was a vivid blue-green, birds soar above us, crabs were crawling all over the rocks, fish swimming about, and a slight gentle breeze blew. We took a short 5 minute ferry across to Santa Cruz, where we'd be staying. We then took a bus from the boat dock on a twisty road through the lush, green, sweet smelling hills of Santa Cruz to Puerto Ayora. On the way to our hotel in Puerto Ayora, we stopped at a municipal waste site, where there was basically a bunch of burning trash.



After a lunch of we had free time to explore the town of Puerto Ayora. Meals in general over the course of the trip consisted of fish, rice, vegetables, dessert, and fruit juice. Our hotel was located near the water and near the playground, and near all the tourist shops. Venture further and you found more typical stores that sold cell phones, applicances, groceries, and clothing. I was actually surprised by the degree of civilization on the islands. The hotel I stayed at, Hotel Castro was nicer than I expected, although a little lacking in the hot water department, but it had air conditioning. All the stores used American money as currency, and there were internet cafes all over the place. Despite all these comforts, Puerto Ayora still maintained a quaint, rustic feeling.

Before dinner, we went to tortuga bay to swim. After a very long walk (3 miles!), we were finally greeted with gorgeous scenery and water. At the time, although we didn't know this, we were swimming in the Pacific Ocean and not Tortuga Bay which was further down. The water was the perfect temperature but the saltiest water I have ever experienced. There were marine iguanas all over the place, many well camoflauged against the dark rocks.

Galapagos Introduction

Introduction

I visited the Galapagos Islands as part of a program for MIT freshman called Terrascope. First semester I took a class called 12.000, Mission 2008: Solving Complex Problems. In this class we had 3 specific goals to accomplish:

1. To develop a new preservation strategy for the Galapagos that builds on the current management plan for the Galapagos National Park and Galapagos Marine Reserve by designating the two as a "World Scientific Preserve" that would be managed by an international commission and funded by a multinational trust;

2. To design and deploy a network of environmental sensors to support a comprehensive program of ecosystem monitoring on the islands and surrounding waters

3. To design an idealized "village" for permanent residents and visitors that would ensure the lowest possible human impact on island ecosystems.

Our solutions required us to work in teams of about 7 students and conquer the problems involving the Galapagos Island by combining knowledge from a variety of different disciplines. Each team was given a specfic island to study- I was on team 2, and we focused on Fernandina and Isabela Island. Then the entire class reorganized into new teams to accomplish the 3 major goals above. I was part of the environmental sensor group. At the end of the semester we had to present our semester's worth of work to an international comittee of experts, which was quite intimidating. Here is my team's final website and the final presentation.

Second Semester, the purpose is to convey the special aspects of the Galapagos to a wider audience. The class is called 1.016, Communicating Complex Environmental Issues: Designing and Building Interactive Museum Exhibits. Along with 5 other people, I am designing, engineering, and building an interactive museum-style exhibit about the unique animals of the islands.