In case you were wondering, here’s the long version of how Marieke and I met.

January 2014: Puerto Ayora ferry port, Galapagos Islands, 7:00am

Marieke had been traveling for a week with three fellow Canadians, Jill, Jeff and Jess. I showed up to the take the ferry to Isabella Island, and was soon introduced to the group. Getting off the ferry at Isabella, the five of us were herded onto a party bus/taxi with a driver who owned “La Jungle” guesthouse.  He actually had two really great rooms, one with three beds and one with two. Jill and Jeff took the smaller room, and Marieke, Jess and I took the bigger room. As so often happens with traveling, it was just established without discussion that I was now a part of the group.

La Jungle owner gave off seriously creepy vibes. But we didn’t understand the extent of it until we ran into a mutual friend who told us the owner tried to get him to stay at his place because “he had chicas for us”. Barring the fact that our friend was most definitely gay, we were not thrilled in the least.

Due to an earlier flight date, Jeff, Jill and Jess were taking the ferry at the end of the next day, while Marieke and I had another two nights on the island. We decided it would be easier if Marieke and I took the smaller room as it was cheaper, so we moved our bags downstairs to the room, and headed out with everyone on a snorkelling tour for the day. During the (amazing) tour of Los Tunneles, we discussed how creepy the owner seemed. On our walk back through the town, we decided that if for some strange reason our room hadn’t been cleaned, we would check out immediately; if it had been cleaned, we would stay. Holding our breath as we walked into the room, sure enough it was exactly as we had left it. We grabbed our bags and found a lovely little place run by a lovely little woman, spent another four days together in the Galapagos Islands, and decided it would be perfectly reasonable to plan a 2.5 month trip to India together. As you do.