Santa Cruz Island
After a delicious breakfast we disembarked, having a dry landing at the dock on Puerto Ayora, the largest town in the Galápagos Islands. During the morning we headed to the Charles Darwin Research Station, a very interesting place for our explorers where we got to learn about the efforts of the Galapagos National Park, and the projects to eradicate introduced species and increase the rate of survival of the endemic ones. It was a very informative place. Here we got to see different species of giant tortoises and land iguanas in captivity; we also got to see the hatchlings of several species in danger of extinction.
As we headed back to town at 11 o’clock, buses were ready to take us to the highlands where some of us went biking or even walking about four miles before we got to a beautiful farm where we had lunch.
After lunch we put our rubber boots on and left towards a very green looking private farm with many Giant tortoises feeding on the very thick green plants growing here at the humid zone of the island. We had a walk along the grasslands. Here tortoises were everywhere we walked. It seems like we were just on the season where most of the males are left behind while females go down to the arid zone to lay their eggs.
It was pretty misty up there, but we have to say that it was very enjoyable, walking on a totally different landscape, greener and more alive looking as opposed to the one we were getting used to, during the previous excursions on the islands.
Some of us also went on an excursion along the milky forest made out of Scalecia pedunculata , the tallest out of the Scalecia varieties. Further in the forest we saw some species of tree finches. Here we found the twin holes; they were huge collapsed magma chambers, now a visitor site within the milky forest.
This was an outstanding day full of adventure and richness of evolution itself on the most populated island of the Galápagos.
