Santa Cruz
Puerto Ayora is the largest town in the Galápagos archipelago, and the best opportunity to see Galápagos giant tortoises. As we start our activities today we first visit the Charles Darwin Research Station, an organization that became known to the world for saving these gentle giants from going extinct. What is nice about the morning visit is that we have the possibility to see more than just one species of tortoise; their key program is the repatriation of the land tortoises to their natural habitats on their islands of origin.
How the program works is also very interesting: during nesting season park rangers follow the tortoises to their nesting grounds and mark the nests. They go back in the last month of incubation and collect those eggs to transport them to the incubators. Once the eggs hatch, the hatchlings are transported to the pens, where they will remain for a few years until their shells harden, so they can be sent back to their original home. It has taken many years to complete the cycle successfully, but today there is only good news…. Today this wonderful creature’s numbers have recovered and they are roaming their islands freely.
We left Puerto Ayora before noon and went to the highlands, where we discovered green, lush vegetation covering the highland areas. After lunch we had a second chance to see the giant tortoises, this time in their natural habitat— a completely different experience from this morning’s. The reason we get to see them in the wild is because they come to this particular area to get fresh water from the natural ponds. We were not disappointed: we found many large males feeding and sleeping around the area, covered by grasses and mud. These primitive looking animals continue to amaze us all; their tameness and peaceful behavior is very contrasting with their looks…
As we head back to the ship we now have a clear understanding that the name Galápagos is the Spanish translation of “saddle”; this enchanted group of islands have been named honoring these magnificent tortoises that have made this isolated rocks their home…
