Santa Cruz Island

After travelling all night we finally reached Santa Cruz Island. Here, we disembarked to visit the Charles Darwin Research Station, home to the legendary Lonesome George. The Charles Research Station is the chief institution in the field of scientific research in the Galápagos Islands. Here we visited the giant tortoise’s breeding center and we learned about the procedures for incubation and repatriation of baby giant tortoises to the wild.

A few yards away from this place we met Lonesome George. He seemed to be very busy since early in the morning because he was mating with one of the females. Mating has happened many times during these last years but without success. Lonesome George is an icon in the conservation programs carried out on the islands, and an example that species do not last forever if we do not take care of them. Human-related activities can take them to extinction. Pinta Island, George’s home island, used to have thousands of tortoises and all but George were taken as food by the early voyagers.

In the afternoon we headed to the highlands of Santa Cruz. After a 30-minute bus ride uphill through a green forest we reached the visitor site. Here, we had lunch and then we headed to the tortoises’ territory. After walking for a few minutes, we found the first ones and eventually we had many in front of our eyes.

Santa Cruz is the second largest island of the Galápagos and has a population of more than three thousand tortoises in the wild. The vegetation is green all year round, therefore these giant reptiles thrive here. Another interesting point as you look at the island’s vegetation is that many of these evergreen trees are endemic to the Galápagos. As this island gets more precipitation it can have a lot of plants blooming all year round, therefore there is more food for tortoises and more berries and seeds for the emblematic Darwin’s finches.