Santa Cruz Island
It is 5:30am in the morning, and I can see clearly the island of Santa Cruz. By the time the captain dropped the anchor, the sky has turned into a beautiful orange color and I have hard time believing it is real. Soon we are getting ready to disembark at the municipal dock of Puerto Ayora where we will see the Darwin Station and the tortoises – this is always a creature we all enjoy.
Once we arrived at the station we went straight to the breeding center. How great is to know that in the current days it is possible to restore the population of these giants, beautiful reptiles that we once came to hunt unmercifully?
Soon after seeing the baby tortoises, we stop at the enclosure of the last of the Mohicans in Galápagos – the well-known Lonesome George. Today we were able to see him in the open area and he was, as most of the time you see him, sleepy.
It was warm, and after the stop in the station we went for a walk and shopped in Puerto Ayora. Before long the busses arrived to take us to the highlands, and there we were walked through a lava tunnel before lunch. It’s wonderful to have our lunch once a week in a large open area surrounded it by nature.
Next we went into the highlands to see tortoises in the wild. After that we climbed to higher ground to see the twins, two pit craters, and not even the pouring rain stopped us from exploring here. The landscape now is different and the rain shows us the richness of this part of the islands covered by green where penguins and finches sing songs of happiness.
Finally we rode back to Puerto Ayora and the Zodiacs ferried us back to the ship, which sailed for our next destination to continue this great adventure.
