Santa Cruz Island
We woke up this morning in Academy Bay, Santa Cruz Island. We wanted to visit the Charles Darwin Research Center and the Fausto Llerena giant tortoise breading center. We wanted to learn about the Galápagos giant tortoise’s repatriation program.
We met little and big ones, lonesome and crowded pens and we had a wonderful experience. After this visit we had some free time to visit downtown Puerto Ayora, the economic capital of the Galápagos. We saw and enjoyed the fishermen’s market, the many souvenir shops, and the beautiful jewelry shops. It was marvelous!
We all met at the port authority headquarters, where the buses were waiting for us to take us for lunch, up and high in the green area of the island. After an exciting crossing of an endless lava tunnel, we arrived to the restaurant. Our lunch had all Ecuadorian delicacies, such as cinnamon carrots and fresh corn salad. Our kids on board gave a bad defeat to our guides on the ping-pong table, and the hammocks helped after deserts to deal with all the yummy food in our stomachs.
Then, we headed to the farm area to look for wild tortoises. Around this area we found several females, juveniles and some large males feeding on vegetation, while others were drinking fresh water in the pond, together with the ducks. We found, too, a good number of ground finches, yellow warblers, Galápagos mockingbirds, and of course the already mentioned white cheeked pin tailed ducks. That was exciting…
After seeing the tortoises, we drove higher up into the forest of the Galápagos giant daisies. Everybody was shocked to learn about them! The pit craters were awesome and left our crowd speechless…
We left Santa Cruz at six and looked forward to hot showers to get ready for a full dinner on board. Tomorrow’s destination: Isabela Island. What a wonderful day!
