Rain ruins things here, like cockfighting
Trip Start
Jan 18, 2010
1
19
28
Trip End
Apr 11, 2010
Isabela, Galapagos Islands, Ecuador
Saturday, February 6, 2010
Manuel told us about his mandatory year in the military and how brutal it was. They were whipped and forced to learn many songs in a day. They worked them extremely hard because they had to weed out people so they would have enough beds. He also explained to us some of the fishing laws that they had around Puerto Villamil and where some of the good spots are.
The majority of the conversation was on cockfighting because he had invited Petter and I to join him in going to the cockfights tonight. It happens every two weeks up at a stadium on the way to the highlands. He used to be very involved and at one point had over 30 gallos that he would fight. He brought out two leather cases of the fish bones they use as weapons for their gallos. Each one cost anywhere from $30 to $120 and they are put on the claws of the cock so it can do more damage. It is made of different materials but the best is out of some type of fishbone, but he didn’t know the name. He gave all of his old ones that can’t be used anymore to Sarah so she could use them for art, and gave one to me as well.
The best Gallo he every had won 20 fights in a row and never lost before he retired it when its vision was impaired in the 20th fight. They start training the cocks at 6 months old when they start to crow and they can start fighting them at 10 months old. The fights can get up to very high stakes, the lowest fights are about $50 dollars, but on new years on year he won 1.3 million sucres in one fight! That is about $26,000 in one night!
At 11 o’clock the rain had cleared and Manuel asked if Sarah and I wanted to go snorkeling. Obviously neither of us would ever turn down that opportunity so we headed out with Manuel, Mirella, and Kenlly. Although the visibility was not very good we still had fun and got to see some cool stuff. We saw some penguins on the way out to the site. Once we were in I found a sea turtle, the usual for a day in the water. After a little while Manuel found where some white tip sharks were sleeping. I don’t know how he found these things cause they were pretty far back in a cave but once he found one we saw a bunch more. Some were very small and probably born within the past 2 months, while the biggest one was probably 5 feet long. After checking those out for a while I got tired of the bad vis and got cold so I hopped in the boat and we headed back shortly after.
I got back and changed before heading back to the institute for a barbeque that we always have when changing over teachers. I helped build a fire that we had to strategically cover when it started raining. We had a ton of burgers to cook and I’d be dammed if we didn’t get those things grilled after not having a good ol’ burger for 3 weeks. I got soaked but successfully kept the fire stoaked and made some pretty darn good burgers if I do say so myself.
By the time I left the institute the streets were pretty much like rivers. They are not used to getting this much rain here on the island because this year is el nino. It kind of reminded me of a snow storm back home where even though it was Saturday night pretty much nobody left their homes unless they absolutely had to. It had stopped raining by now yet still people stayed inside.
