Today we navigated towards the uninhabited side of Santa Cruz Island, to visit the natural habitat of the land iguanas in Galapagos. After a dry landing, we immersed ourselves in the delicious scents of an incense tree forest, where a few of the Darwin finches were spotted. After we left the forest behind, we countered a dusty terrain with nesting grounds of the Galapagos land iguanas. Several of these golden dragons were spotted under the shade of the prickly pear cacti. This area is known to be one of the visitor sites where the Galapagos National Park service has eradicated some of the introduced animals, to make sure some of the populations of endemic species rise up to sustainable numbers.
After the hike, we went deep water snorkeling and encountered several invertebrates’ along the underwater walls of the satellite islets of Santa Cruz. Some Galapagos sea lions were spotted swimming with us, as well as a couple of brown pelicans fishing in the area.
After lunch, we navigated towards Eden Islet. While navigating, we had an extraordinary talk on the human history of the Galapagos. It was an interesting review on the history of two the islands, and how the population on the islands was first established.
After our talk on human history, we went on a Zodiac ride along the coast of Santa Cruz and off the cliffs of Eden islet. During the ride, we spotted a few baby black-tipped reef sharks, brown pelicans, blue-footed boobies and several pacific green sea turtles.
What an incredible day we had in the enchanted archipelago!
