who me, hold a grudge?

i´ve never been a fan of zoos or aquariums... looking at animals behind a dirty glass that´s been molested by adolescent cotton candied fingers all day while the captive look drugged, at best, and bored, at worst, is just not my idea of fun. i can´t help but feel like i should unlock the cages and smash the tanks and yell, run! run! RUN! you´re freeeeeee! go home! (and then get trampled by the stampede or drown) so to fight that urge, i simply, don´t go. but today? ahhhh, today was no zoo or aquarium...

today, i was the visitor, and i was in their home. the amount of animals i have seen in the past 2 days has been staggering. and most of them are endemic to the galapago islands. which means that through evolution, most of these facinating, weird creatures have found a way to survive the unique environment in this part of the world by growing whatever extra special power they needed... super long extra pointy beaks, crimson colored feathered breasts, odd breeding habits... and an apparent nonchalance about humans observing them, taking their picture, and ooohing and ahhing over them. every single creature minds their own business, going about their daily hunt, nap and poo.

in the four months of bouncing around india i NEVER ONCE stepped in a giant heap of a cow pattie... 4 MONTHS! considering the amount of steaming land mines everywhere, that´s practically a miracle for me... it took no less than 8.7 steps before i welcomed myself to the galapagos by stepping in a fresh pile of sea lion poo. barefoot and all. awesome. here we go....

at first glance, the sea lions are so cute. they are known as the ´pups´ of the waterworld. so cute... until you see them wiggle their way down the beach and then all of sudden they just look like giant slugs (ew!) squirming their way into the surf. kinda gross. no, i´m not holding a grudge. they smell bad too. i´m just sayin´...

the sea turtles, though? they are the zen masters. just hangin´out, chillin´, floating...being. i´ve always loved turtles. maybe they are the yin to my very hasty yang hare... and today, i just snorkeled and floated with them... UNTIL... oh cool, a school of fish! let me just grab my very nifty underwater camera contraption and take a picture... hmmm, that´s a rather large school of fish and damn those little suckers are fast. where are they high-tailing it to? and then i saw them. through the curtain of cloudy water... a large family of hammerhead sharks... (go ahead and scream, i did.) yes, i said SHARKS!!! HOLY MOTHER#$%&$/$=·(%/(·$/)(·"&%& SHARKS!!!! not one, not two, but a family of them... i know i should have remained a calm zen turtle, but instead, i panicked. okay, i flat out freaked out. i popped my snorkel-masked face out of the water and started screaming inbetween gulps of salty water ¨sharks! sharks! sharks!¨ and kicking my one flipper (yeah the other one broke) as fast as i could. (insert jaws theme here) i´ve read that when your adrenaline starts pumping people are capable of doing the most amazing feats... lifting cars up to save a screaming infant trapped underneath, punching grizzly bears in the face, eating 100 hot dogs in under a minute... my adrenaline? my adrenaline single-flipper zipped me at olympic speed in the opposite direction of the boat, where everyone else from my group was already safely on board. so here i am, out of breath, at one end of the tunnel with one damn flipper... and the boat, way on the other side of the hammerhead shark infested waters. oh, and did i mention that it was flippin FREEZING?!? so, now, i´m a floating titanic victim and i basically have to swim BACK to the other side of the tunnel to get to the boat. alone. zen turtle. zen turtle. zen turtle.

i wish i could say that i zen turtled my way back to the boat alone, facing my fears, trusting that the universe would protect me. i wish that i could say that my guide didn´t have to jump back into the freezing water, swim to me, convince me in spanish that they are harmless sharks (ummm, harmless sharks? that´s an oxymoron if i´ve ever heard one. obviously he has never been glued to the discovery channel during shark week. besides, it´s named after a very aggressive tool that´s used to smash things into the wall or a million pieces. harmless sharks, my ass.) zen turtle. zen turtle.

needless to say, since i´m sitting here with all my limbs intact, after much convincing and maybe a bit if dragging my shivering, terrified, wimpy ass back across the tunnel, i climbed back to life on the other side of the proverbial cotton candied fingerprinted infested glass. ok, maybe zoos and aquariums are so bad afterall.

more snorkeling tomorrow. oh joy.

no, i´m not holding a grudge.