I’ll never forget the way a sunset on the equator cuts through clouds, rain and even clothes. To be outside ƹϾƷGalápagos is to be thoroughly warmed and cradled by the sun. Even when night falls, you still feel shadows of warmth under your shirt or across your neck, a reminder of both the day you had, and the day that awaits.
My first sunburn came on our second day when we visited El Hacienda Tranquila (in English, the peaceful farm). We ate a light breakfast before leaving, sipping on Frutas Rojas tea and dousing eggs with Salsa de Aji, our excitement brewing as yawns morphed into chatter. It was our first full day ƹϾƷGalápagos, and our class of 16 eagerly took ƹϾƷsights and sounds of San Cristobal. When I applied to transfer to Kenyon, I never expected that taking an environmental studies course (ENVS 291: The Galápagos: Nature, People, Politics, and Conservation) would bring me across the world, to an early breakfast ƹϾƷGalápagos Islands.
An hour later, we stepped off the bus ƹϾƷhighlands, where the sun loomed behind clouds, dark and heavy, and the earth cooled from the previous night’s downpour. The plan was to help plant trees across the farm’s hillside. We donned pants, gloves, and rubber boots, and squatted around a pile of mud, our hands filling plastic bags with soil. I had spent the year living ƹϾƷcleanliness of a college campus, spoiled with showers and spotless clothes, but now, ƹϾƷheat and muck of a Galápagos island, I took my gloves off. I felt the earth slip between my hands, its coolness a blanket on my pores. I can’t remember the last time I felt that comfortable.
Several weeks before the trip, I had walked into Hayes Hall five minutes late.
Professor Levin, or Iris, as she asked us to call her, shot me a smile, and I settled into my seat.
It was our sixth Galápagos class, and we had a test on various Galápagos plant species: Tree Scalesia, Matazarno and the Poison Apple, to name a few. I’ve never felt so much energy in one of my Kenyon classes — even ƹϾƷmorning we were bright-eyed and talkative — stemming from our shared sense of purpose. In just a few weeks, we would board a plane together and share that moment of stepping off onto the soil of somewhere else entirely. And so, we were giddy as we flipped through our guidebooks; we pictured fingertips brushing the leaves of the Galapagueño shrubbery, knowing that soon the imagined sensation would be a lived one.
At Hacienda Tranquila, I stood at the edge of the mountainside. A westward wind fanned my face and a raindrop splashed onto the moss carpet beneath me. A few cows grazed ƹϾƷgrass, not a fence in sight. I climbed up a cliffside, skin gripping rock, and tiptoed past a nest of Galápagos petrels. The birds are monitored using solar powered camera traps. Their population keeps the insects in check, something we learned about in class. Giovanni, head of the farm and our guide for the day, explained how he only grows what is native to the island, with no inorganic fertilizer or insecticides needed. The plants spring up on their own, assisted by an irrigation system using the land’s natural incline. Fertilizer is pumped down from the outhouse on top of the hill; Giovanni's message to us is that sustainable farming isn’t just important, but necessary for the future of the island. We listened intently, shadows of Great Frigatebirds washing across our backs beneath the sun.
Soon enough, spring break came to an end, and we were back in class, easing into recollection. Each of us described sensory details from the trip: Salty skin. The roar of a sea lion. The coolness of mora juice. A rash from the poison apple. With each contribution, we nod or laugh, bonded through reminiscence. The intense week had warmed us all, and now as the memories began to cool, it was clear how close we’d all become. Glimpses of the trip tumbled out of our mouths, and onto the classroom floor. How we dove into the aquamarine blue, sat on sand and rock watching sea lions on the beach, or hearing the passion behind Giovanni's words. The stunning heat. The soothing rain. It rushes back, and I look around, appreciating the 15 people sitting around a pile of nostalgic memories.
The best part is that it’s not over. We all go to Kenyon. We regularly eat together before class, and the Galápagos group chat is active as ever. The connection we built as a class didn’t stay behind ƹϾƷislands; it lingers in our daily routines. Our classroom hums even at 8 a.m., the same as it did during our breakfasts over 2,500 miles away, and we talk as friends rather than classmates. And the sensations live on. I imagine the piercing sunlight dry rain off my back. The glimmer of a spotted manta ray shimmering ƹϾƷdeep blue, that bite of the salt water. The raw power and heat of the Galápagos sun stealing skin off my back, and the cool hands of a friend rubbing in aloe to match. My sunburn has faded and peeled, but I still feel the shadows of a tender heat across my body. I think we all do.