Santa Cruz Island
Today we found ourselves anchored in one of the largest ports in the archipelago, Academy Bay at Santa Cruz Island. This island possesses the largest human settlement of the archipelago, seventeen thousand people on it. Most of the population makes a living out of industries like tourism, fishing and agriculture. We were all ready and anxious to go and visit the world renowned Charles Darwin Research Station, where the famous lonesome George is found.
We strolled around the tortoise’s pens and observed larger tortoises and also the babies that are bred in captivity. It was really nice to learn and see with our own eyes the type of conservation projects that these two organizations, The Galápagos National Park and Darwin Station, are carrying out so successfully.
After the morning visit, we were transported to the highlands of Santa Cruz where we explored the moisten highlands to look for the giant tortoises in the wild. We arrived at one of the largest giant tortoise reserves in Santa Cruz. Here, we had the opportunity to walk around and find our own tortoises, sort of speaking. Some of them were feeding, some of them were sleeping and some of them were running, well, maybe not the right word for a tortoise, but they were certainly moving! It was amazing to see so many of them living their lives without any concerns. The scenery probably resembles how their lives used to be before humans ever set foot on these islands.
We had an amazing day on Santa Cruz, the largest and touristiest island of them all, and of course, that has nothing to do with the time for mega-shoppers!
Today we found ourselves anchored in one of the largest ports in the archipelago, Academy Bay at Santa Cruz Island. This island possesses the largest human settlement of the archipelago, seventeen thousand people on it. Most of the population makes a living out of industries like tourism, fishing and agriculture. We were all ready and anxious to go and visit the world renowned Charles Darwin Research Station, where the famous lonesome George is found.
We strolled around the tortoise’s pens and observed larger tortoises and also the babies that are bred in captivity. It was really nice to learn and see with our own eyes the type of conservation projects that these two organizations, The Galápagos National Park and Darwin Station, are carrying out so successfully.
After the morning visit, we were transported to the highlands of Santa Cruz where we explored the moisten highlands to look for the giant tortoises in the wild. We arrived at one of the largest giant tortoise reserves in Santa Cruz. Here, we had the opportunity to walk around and find our own tortoises, sort of speaking. Some of them were feeding, some of them were sleeping and some of them were running, well, maybe not the right word for a tortoise, but they were certainly moving! It was amazing to see so many of them living their lives without any concerns. The scenery probably resembles how their lives used to be before humans ever set foot on these islands.
We had an amazing day on Santa Cruz, the largest and touristiest island of them all, and of course, that has nothing to do with the time for mega-shoppers!
