Santa Cruz Island

We got a luxuriously late start at 8:00 a.m. and Zodiac cruised over to beyond-humid Santa Cruz. First stop was The Charles Darwin Research Station, which has one of the most successful ecological restoration programs in the world. Most exciting was seeing Diego, “The Stud,” who has single-tortoisedly produced three generations of Giant Tortoises and helped to re-populate the species. “Lonesome George,” the last of his breed, became a subject of serious speculation in our group. Although he has two female offspring from “The Stud,” nothing has moved this turtle to breed in the last decade. He looked depressed. Some of us prescribed Prozac, some psychoanalysis; others thought he might just be celibate or gay.

We didn’t solve his need to breed, and so we moved on to the lava caves and lunch at the lovely “El Chato” restaurant, inside the “El Chato” private reserve within the National Park, where we caught our first breeze on the open porch, and had an expansive view of the ocean, hills, and islands further out. Some of us sweated and crawled our way through the lava caves; others, drank their first beer of the day.

Next stop for the intrepid travelers was a visit to the grassy green fields within the Reserve where the giant sea tortoises have roamed for thousands of years on their travels to and from their breeding and egg-laying sites. This is a lush island, quite different from the ones we have visited so far. We met three turtles in the field and one white pintail duck, the only duck native to the Islands.

On to visit “Los Gemelos,” the twin craters 2,000 feet further up from the Reserve. These were giant holes made in the Earth by a volcanic eruption that never happened, and instead imploded about 2 million years ago, now filled with green shrubs and trees. AT LEAST, if not more interesting for those of us in Celso’s group, was a riveting storytelling at the edge of one of the craters about pirates. If you weren’t there and want to know the difference between buccaneers and privateers, the meaning of the pirate’s hat, black eye patch, arm tattoos, parrot pets, and many other astonishing facts about pirating, be sure to ask Celso to repeat these stories, some of them told to him by his family when he visited the craters and was told scary stories to keep him from running over the cliff.

In the Highlands, we had the pleasure of viewing the canopies of beautiful Daisy trees, which look like Mary Poppins umbrellas, a delicate orchard, and vibrant yellow and red hibiscus flowers, as well as listening to the songs of Darwin finches and yellow warblers.

I will end the day with a haiku to the incomparable Sally Lightfoot crab, not because it has any relevance to our adventures but because I have fallen passionately in love with her and composed this on the bus today:
“Sally Lightfoot Crab
Dancing across black lava rocks
Blue, red, orange, yellow, gold”


Your fellow traveller and reporter.