Santa Cruz Island
Santa Cruz is the most central of the islands in the Galapagos archipelago and it also has the largest population of all the five inhabited ones. The town of Puerto Ayora, which was our morning destination, has been the main base for tourism for the last 25 years, and is home to the National park headquarters and the Charles Darwin research station. The island has all the recognized vegetation zones and probably the highest number of bird species can be seen overall on Santa Cruz, including nine species of Darwin’s finches. This fact made our guests very happy, specially the ones traveling with us this week from Audubon society.
A raised wooden walkway led us to the main attraction of this morning, the corrals with fully-grown giant tortoises! We spent the entire morning visiting different enclosures where the Darwin station has placed some of these ancient-looking reptiles. We also visited the section were “Lonesome George”, the sole survivor of the Pinta island subspecies, now resides with some females from nearby Wolf volcano, located on Isabela Island. Despite all encouragement he has failed to take close interest in his companions!
Today was definitely a day dedicated to conservation. Our guests seemed to be very pleased to learn that our dedication to conservation has gone far and our desire to do more would help us to achieve an undoubted success.
Santa Cruz is the most central of the islands in the Galapagos archipelago and it also has the largest population of all the five inhabited ones. The town of Puerto Ayora, which was our morning destination, has been the main base for tourism for the last 25 years, and is home to the National park headquarters and the Charles Darwin research station. The island has all the recognized vegetation zones and probably the highest number of bird species can be seen overall on Santa Cruz, including nine species of Darwin’s finches. This fact made our guests very happy, specially the ones traveling with us this week from Audubon society.
A raised wooden walkway led us to the main attraction of this morning, the corrals with fully-grown giant tortoises! We spent the entire morning visiting different enclosures where the Darwin station has placed some of these ancient-looking reptiles. We also visited the section were “Lonesome George”, the sole survivor of the Pinta island subspecies, now resides with some females from nearby Wolf volcano, located on Isabela Island. Despite all encouragement he has failed to take close interest in his companions!
Today was definitely a day dedicated to conservation. Our guests seemed to be very pleased to learn that our dedication to conservation has gone far and our desire to do more would help us to achieve an undoubted success.
