It began as a very sunny day and was bound to be a very special day, as we would be seeing the giants of the Galapagos. We approached the shore in the Zodiacs and before we disembarked at the dock we could see several marine iguanas swimming to the ocean, probably looking for a good rock to obtain some of the marine macroalgae that they eat.
A few feet before arriving to the dock, we found several juvenile brown pelicans standing on a mangrove tree several feet away from us. We disembarked among several marine iguanas that were basking out in the open.
It was a sunny day, and it got a little hot during the walk, but we carried drinking water and all the imaginable shapes and models of hats to cover ourselves from this tropical sun. We had lots of green plants around us, including gigantic cacti.
We began the visit to the Tortoise Breeding Center and first we saw the little tortoises that hatched just a few months ago. In one corral there were some from this year, only a few months old and crawling around, getting ready to live over 120 years.
After this we met the giants, over 250 kilograms, moving around at slow speeds, although it could have been considered a “sprint” for a gigantic tortoise.
We saw “Diego,” a famous tortoise from Espanola Island that was given back by the San Diego Zoo to start the early phase of the breeding program; a program that literally brought these animals back from near extinction. This male is probably the father of hundreds of tortoises that hatched in this facility and have been repatriated back to their original island.
In the afternoon we had the chance to walk among the giants of the Galapagos, but this time in the wild highlands of Santa Cruz Island. It was not very muddy, a great surprise as it was raining very hard during lunchtime. We finally returned back onboard for dinner and to enjoy the music of a local group of musicians.
