Santa Cruz Island
What a great day we had today! Early in the morning we woke up anchored in a wonderful bay, Academy Bay. This bay that bathes the port town of Puerto Ayora was named after the California Academy of Sciences that came twice last century to the Galápagos Archipelago. Santa Cruz Island is home for two well known conservation institutions, the Charles Darwin Research Station and the Galápagos National Park Service. Both institutions work very close together in the efforts to incubate, rear, and repatriate the world famous giant tortoises. We visited the rearing center and we could feel how this hard work will guarantee the survival of these endangered reptiles. We observed many tiny baby tortoises which will be repatriated to their respective islands. At the Research Station we were astounded by the massive size of the legendary Lonesome George, the last survivor of Pinta Island. The hard work for the preservation that takes place here gives us hope for the future.
After some free time exploring the town, we boarded local buses to go in the of direction the “highlands”. We had a succulent open air lunch in a local farm surrounded by the typical lush green vegetation found at this altitude. The many trees and singing Darwin finches in this area made it hard to believe that this was the exact same island we were on earlier in the morning. Different options were offered. In all of them we had the wonderful opportunity to see giant tortoises roaming freely in the wild. It was a lovely experience indeed! Another full day in the enchanted Islands.
What a great day we had today! Early in the morning we woke up anchored in a wonderful bay, Academy Bay. This bay that bathes the port town of Puerto Ayora was named after the California Academy of Sciences that came twice last century to the Galápagos Archipelago. Santa Cruz Island is home for two well known conservation institutions, the Charles Darwin Research Station and the Galápagos National Park Service. Both institutions work very close together in the efforts to incubate, rear, and repatriate the world famous giant tortoises. We visited the rearing center and we could feel how this hard work will guarantee the survival of these endangered reptiles. We observed many tiny baby tortoises which will be repatriated to their respective islands. At the Research Station we were astounded by the massive size of the legendary Lonesome George, the last survivor of Pinta Island. The hard work for the preservation that takes place here gives us hope for the future.
After some free time exploring the town, we boarded local buses to go in the of direction the “highlands”. We had a succulent open air lunch in a local farm surrounded by the typical lush green vegetation found at this altitude. The many trees and singing Darwin finches in this area made it hard to believe that this was the exact same island we were on earlier in the morning. Different options were offered. In all of them we had the wonderful opportunity to see giant tortoises roaming freely in the wild. It was a lovely experience indeed! Another full day in the enchanted Islands.
