The highlands of Santa Cruz are lush, green and fertile. This comes to a surprise to many of the Polaris' guests, who are under the impression that Galapagos is only cactus, lava flows, sea lions and marine iguanas! Indeed most of the visits, during our one-week cruise through these magical islands, are to the coastal dry zone. But we make a point of spending an afternoon in the verdant highlands so that our guests can experience the other, and less well known, side of the Galapagos ecosystem.
Santa Cruz was colonized in the late 1800's first by Ecuadorians and in the 1920's by Norwegian and European settlers. In 1959, when the boundaries of the National Park were determined, farmland and towns were labeled "colonized zone" and not included in the National Park itself. Hence 3% of the islands are excluded from the Park. In the agricultural zone of Santa Cruz there are cattle farms that supply both milk and meat to those who live in Galapagos. Small banana and coffee plantations provide fruits and vegetables for the local populace. Fresh produce is also consumed in restaurants and on vessels that carry tourists between the islands.
The view across the grassy pastures and dense woodlands was glorious this afternoon. But the bustling town of Puerto Ayora, population nearly 10,000, and the turquoise waters of Academy Bay which were dotted with anchored yachts and ships, appeared insignificant from this vantage point. Indeed, most of the acreage of this island belongs to the birds and reptiles that arrived here hundreds of thousands of years ago, and not to the few humans who only relatively recently established on these islands.
