Santa Cruz Island
I was born in Santa Cruz, spent all of my childhood on this island, and went to school and high school here as well. I grew up without television, and only when I was fifteen years old and I got to mainland Ecuador for the first time, I saw tall buildings, TV’s, cars and thousands of people all together. Today I have traveled, I have been in larger cities, I have met people from different nationalities, but I can say, my favorite place on earth is still Santa Cruz Island, my home island.
I grew up surrounded by tortoises in the wild. They live in the highlands, as I used to, and roan free through the green areas rich in vegetation and poodles with fresh water and cool air. After school I enjoyed jumping off from the main dock of town, swimming with my friends in Ninfa Bay, free of boats or people, pristine ocean, with the most amazing turquoise water I have ever seen.
Today things have changed a little. There are cars, there is cable television, there are many boats in Ninfa and Academy bay, but the air one breathes is the same, and the tortoises are probably also the same I met in my youth, as they live for so many years.
George is still in the Charles Darwin Research Station, a famous male from Pinta that we visit every Wednesday. The numbers of baby tortoises keep increasing; the same for the land iguanas that are now bred in captivity.
The highlands of Santa Cruz haven’t changed much; tortoises still migrate through farming areas of the island. Today we found dozens in Steve Devine’s place. I sat and watched one of them. Maybe I had met that same tortoise twenty years ago, a lot of time for me, human being on this earth, but just the glimpse of an eye for this creature that can live more than a hundred years.
I was born in Santa Cruz, spent all of my childhood on this island, and went to school and high school here as well. I grew up without television, and only when I was fifteen years old and I got to mainland Ecuador for the first time, I saw tall buildings, TV’s, cars and thousands of people all together. Today I have traveled, I have been in larger cities, I have met people from different nationalities, but I can say, my favorite place on earth is still Santa Cruz Island, my home island.
I grew up surrounded by tortoises in the wild. They live in the highlands, as I used to, and roan free through the green areas rich in vegetation and poodles with fresh water and cool air. After school I enjoyed jumping off from the main dock of town, swimming with my friends in Ninfa Bay, free of boats or people, pristine ocean, with the most amazing turquoise water I have ever seen.
Today things have changed a little. There are cars, there is cable television, there are many boats in Ninfa and Academy bay, but the air one breathes is the same, and the tortoises are probably also the same I met in my youth, as they live for so many years.
George is still in the Charles Darwin Research Station, a famous male from Pinta that we visit every Wednesday. The numbers of baby tortoises keep increasing; the same for the land iguanas that are now bred in captivity.
The highlands of Santa Cruz haven’t changed much; tortoises still migrate through farming areas of the island. Today we found dozens in Steve Devine’s place. I sat and watched one of them. Maybe I had met that same tortoise twenty years ago, a lot of time for me, human being on this earth, but just the glimpse of an eye for this creature that can live more than a hundred years.
