Santa Cruz Island
This morning we arrived at Santa Cruz Island, which has the largest population in the archipelago. After breakfast we went ashore at the town of Puerto Ayora, where it was nice to see the local people coexisting with nature; we found sea lions resting onboard fishing boats, as well as a big fish market, where some pelicans were trying to steal fish.
At Puerto Ayora we went to the Charles Darwin Research Station. It was nice to see the newborn tortoises, smaller than an open hand, as well as the giant ones, weighing more than 400 pounds. It’s hard to imagine that those small babies will get so huge, although it takes nearly 100 years!
At the Darwin Station we also found Lonesome George, resting in his fresh water pond, where he lives with two female tortoises from Wolf Volcano— all of them were so close to us!
Later in the day we headed to the highlands of Santa Cruz via bus, to go to a nice local lodge for our lunch. In the afternoon we went to a wonderful geological formation called Los Gemelos, or The Twins; these are two giant pit craters surrounded by an endemic Scalesia forest, which is very lush. We got the idea of what it’s like to be inside a cloud forest. At this site we also found lots of Darwin’s finches, Galápagos doves and Gálapagos mockingbirds.
Our next adventure was to see giant tortoises in the wild. We found many very big ones, grazing and moving a lot. A vermillion flycatcher was also found; that was very special, since it is one of the most colorful land birds of the archipelago.
After a nice day we all came back for our dinner and recap. Then local musicians came onboard to give us a show with local songs and dances!
