Santa Cruz Island
The National Geographic Endeavour anchors this morning at Academy Bay where a sunny morning waits to bring us an extraordinary day in the land of giants, the Galápagos tortoises. After breakfast, the flotilla of Zodiacs is ready to take all of our guests into Puerto Ayora, the largest city in the islands, with some 25,000 inhabitants.
We start our outing with a visit to the Galápagos rearing center, located in the National Park facilities. We have a good number of young explorers this week on the National Geographic Endeavour, which are delighted to meet the baby tortoises. Here, at the center, the curators keep these baby giants until they are four years old, before they are sent back to their islands of origin.
As we continue our walk, we are lucky today to see Lonesome George, the infamous last male from Pinta Island. Today he is enjoying his private pool, given that the temperature of the day is well into the 90’s. After seeing George, we take the boardwalk to see several females and males from different islands, as well as the original 15 individuals from Española Island, the same that have reproduced an amazing 1500 tortoises in captivity, and have being already repatriated to their home island!
This week our guests were amazed to find one of these tortoises in Española Island, the third sighting ever since these reptiles were sent back to the island!
Santa Cruz Island gives us the opportunity to spend the entire day on the island, and we enjoy the comfort that the Altair, a wonderful restaurant that is located in the highlands, that offers a refreshing pool to our young and adult hikers, as well as a delicious BBQ.
Following lunch, our goal is to find giant tortoises in the wild, so we venture into the woods, to find three giant males. And from there, we continue to the sink holes, or Los Gemelos, where a unique forest of sunflowers evolved as a giant tree of some 30 feet high, Scalesia pedunculata.
Having done all of that, we are happy to take our Zodiac ride back to the National Geographic Endeavour, where a party waits for us, with folkloric music and dancers!
