Welcome to the Blog!

Hi all--student travelers, parents, and other readers!

This blog will document our experience in Ecuador and provide a space for students to reflect on and share their learning during the trip.  I, for one, am so excited to travel to the Galapagos Islands, in part because Latin America has played a formative role in my development as a scholar and teacher.  I majored in Latin American Studies at Smith College after having traveled to do service work in Mexico for the summer between my first and second years of college.  Then, I worked after college at The Center for Cross-Cultural Studies in Amherst, MA, an organization that provided study abroad opportunities for U.S. college students in Havana, Cuba.  Finally, I ended up getting a Master's Degree in Spanish and Latin American Studies and used that degree to pursue a career in human rights.  (I came to writing late and to teaching English late!)

All of which is to say: I love, love, love la gente, la cultura, y la historia del continente.

Given my career as an English teacher and writer now, I'm interested in the Galapagos because of how many famous writers and thinkers were drawn to the islands.  The great spiritual writer Annie Dillard, the rascal novelist Kurt Vonnegut, the groundbreaking scientist Charles Darwin.  Even Herman Melville, the great American writer of Moby Dick, wrote a series of ten sketches about the islands that he called "Las Encantadas," or "The Enchanted Islands."

Of particular interest to me is how much each writer's description of the islands differs in sensibility and focus.  Take, for example, the two following descriptions of Galapagos from Melville and Darwin, respectively:

Melville:

In many places the coast is rock-bound, or, more properly, clinker-bound; tumbled masses of blackish or greenish stuff like the dross of an iron-furnace, forming dark clefts and caves here and there, into which a ceaseless sea pours a fury of foam; overhanging them with a swirl of gray, haggard mist, amidst which sail screaming flights of unearthly birds heightening the dismal din. However calm the sea without, there is no rest for these swells and those rocks; they lash and are lashed, even when the outer ocean is most at peace with itself. On the oppressive, clouded days, such as are peculiar to this part of the watery Equator, the dark, vitrified masses, many of which raise themselves among white whirlpools and breakers in detached and perilous places off the shore, present a most Plutonian sight. In no world but a fallen one could such lands exist.

Darwin:

The entire surface of this part of the island seems to have been permeated, like a sieve, by the subterranean vapours: here and there the lava, whilst soft, has been blown into great bubbles; and in other parts, the tops of caverns similarly formed have fallen in, leaving circular pits with steep sides. From the regular form of the many craters, they gave to the country an artificial appearance, which vividly reminded me of those parts of Staffordshire where the great iron-foundries are most numerous. The day was glowing hot, and the scrambling over the rough surface and through the intricate thickets was very fatiguing; but I was well repaid by the strange Cyclopean scene. As I was walking along I met two large tortoises, each of which must have weighed at least two hundred pounds: one was eating a piece of cactus, and as I approached, it stared at me and slowly walked away; the other gave a deep hiss, and drew in its head. These huge reptiles, surrounded by the black lava, the leafless shrubs, and large cacti, seemed to my fancy like some antediluvian animals. The few dull-coloured birds cared no more for me than they did for the great tortoises. 

What's similar and what's different about these descriptions?  Consider things like tone and image.  How does Melville characterize the islands compared to Darwin--what is the difference in their attitude toward the place?  What images stay with you?  How do their jobs as literary writer and scientist affect their writing and observations?