Book #89: Galapagos: Islands Born of Fire by Tui de Roy

Obviously I read this because we are planning a trip there when we go visit my parents in November. (Ahhh!) I decided I wanted to learn more about it and to actually be able to enjoy and appreciate what we get to see while we are there, so I've checked out a few books from the library, including this one. I thought this book was actually pretty fascinating from the author's perspective, as someone who actually grew up on the islands of the Galapagos starting in the sixties, when there were hardly anyone living there and no tourist industry at all. De Roy's childhood and life sound like something out of a book--not real. They traveled around on a boat from island to island, just learning about things and trying to visit new places and see all the different species and shells and volcanic eruptions they could see. De Roy became a nature photographer after her childhood there and has had a ton of crazy experiences, especially back here in the Galapagos, from what she writes about. I found it very interesting just to picture her life and to read about her experiences and the things she's seen with her own two eyes in this book, and to see the pictures that accompanied it. For example, she visited the Island of Floreana while the volcano there was erupting, because it was erupting, because she wanted to see it and to be able to photograph it, and watched its effects on the wildlife in the area and how the lava killed animals and how it made the water boil, etc. I mean, I have this fear of volcanoes and would definitely NOT have been rushing towards it to see how it happened, so it was really cool to read about her experiences and live vicariously through her (although I definitely don't want her life, that's for sure). She also was very good at writing about the different species there and I felt like I learned a lot about the islands as a whole, although it didn't help me to try and distinguish between the different types of islands.