Santa Cruz Island
We anchored this morning at Puerto Ayora on Santa Cruz Island. Santa Cruz is the second largest island in the Archipelago. Here, we visited the Charles Darwin Research Station and the Galapagos National Park Service. The morning was spent visiting the breeding center and learning about the conservation programs for Galápagos giant tortoises, land iguanas and other animals.
We had the opportunity to see different types of giant tortoises. There are three main ones: dome shaped, saddle back and the “intermediate” also known as flat shells. This place offers a great variety of plants unique to the islands, as well as an abundance of Darwin’s finches. After visiting the tortoises, we headed down to explore Puerto Ayora.
At 11:00 am we boarded the buses to go to the highlands. Once there, we walked through a lava tunnel and enjoyed a well earned buffet lunch. Then we headed to explore this lush forest habitat of the iconic giant reptiles. We could see tortoises of all sizes that frequent this area because of the fresh pastures and ponds.
Later on we arrived to the ever-green Scalesia (giant daisy) forest. We observed an intricate ecosystem where there are hundreds of species of ferns, lichens and mosses. All of them known as epiphytes, which entirely cover the bushes and trees. We spotted more Darwin’s finches and spotted some blooming orchids.
This place is known as Los Gemelos because of the presence of two big collapsed craters geologically known as pit craters. With this visit we concluded our expedition and headed to Puerto Ayora to board the National Geographic Islander.
