Santa Cruz Island
It was a full, full day, but boy was it spectacular! Just seeing the island of Santa Cruz from the ship gives me tickles in my stomach. You know, with all those boats anchored in Academy Bay and Puerto Ayora covered with its homes, hotels, and shops. From the ship one can make out the offices of the Galápagos National Park and the Charles Darwin Research Station to the right of town. And finally, the highlands in the distance sloping up and down with its volcanoes, long extinct, draped now in green. From the light of dawn I knew it was going to be a great day.
As we approached the dock in our Zodiacs, I could sense the anticipation from everyone. There was such lush vegetation! We had seen some of these plants on other islands but this island gets extra rain on the southern side. All this greenery really stands out and awakened the botanist in everyone. Then it was the tortoises’ turn. Little by little you got to hear all about their ecology and how we are trying to save them. There were the small ones, the big ones, the ugly ones, and the not so ugly ones. These large reptiles do make an impression on one, don’t they?
Not to forget you birders, remember all those finches? What was it, four or five different species? And we hadn’t even gone up to the highlands yet. What a morning! The town itself was also quite special. Shop ‘til you drop anyone? Don’t think I didn’t see those shopping bags. The people in town were nice too: smiling, friendly and helpful. Did you have a beer or maybe an ice cream?
Up, up, up to the highlands then with all of us. We drove along the farmlands until we reached our destination….Altair. Good food and drink before we continued our expedition into the semi-cloud forests looking for more wonderful creatures. Seeing the giant tortoises in the wild brought us a bit closer to understanding their world. The immense pit craters, at Los Gemelos, showed us how small we really are. And when some of us got a glimpse of this remarkable bird, the woodpecker finch (see today’s photo) with its capability of tool use, we realized that we humans aren’t so unique….at least in that respect. Hope everyone enjoyed the day as much as I did.
It was a full, full day, but boy was it spectacular! Just seeing the island of Santa Cruz from the ship gives me tickles in my stomach. You know, with all those boats anchored in Academy Bay and Puerto Ayora covered with its homes, hotels, and shops. From the ship one can make out the offices of the Galápagos National Park and the Charles Darwin Research Station to the right of town. And finally, the highlands in the distance sloping up and down with its volcanoes, long extinct, draped now in green. From the light of dawn I knew it was going to be a great day.
As we approached the dock in our Zodiacs, I could sense the anticipation from everyone. There was such lush vegetation! We had seen some of these plants on other islands but this island gets extra rain on the southern side. All this greenery really stands out and awakened the botanist in everyone. Then it was the tortoises’ turn. Little by little you got to hear all about their ecology and how we are trying to save them. There were the small ones, the big ones, the ugly ones, and the not so ugly ones. These large reptiles do make an impression on one, don’t they?
Not to forget you birders, remember all those finches? What was it, four or five different species? And we hadn’t even gone up to the highlands yet. What a morning! The town itself was also quite special. Shop ‘til you drop anyone? Don’t think I didn’t see those shopping bags. The people in town were nice too: smiling, friendly and helpful. Did you have a beer or maybe an ice cream?
Up, up, up to the highlands then with all of us. We drove along the farmlands until we reached our destination….Altair. Good food and drink before we continued our expedition into the semi-cloud forests looking for more wonderful creatures. Seeing the giant tortoises in the wild brought us a bit closer to understanding their world. The immense pit craters, at Los Gemelos, showed us how small we really are. And when some of us got a glimpse of this remarkable bird, the woodpecker finch (see today’s photo) with its capability of tool use, we realized that we humans aren’t so unique….at least in that respect. Hope everyone enjoyed the day as much as I did.
