Santa Cruz Island
We have sailed through the Galápagos archipelago for half a week. We have seen some of its most famous species, swallow-tailed gulls, flightless cormorants, marine iguanas, found no where else in the world. We have swum among sea lions and turtles, but there is one thing we haven’t done yet, and that’s to meet the giants of this archipelago, the tortoises.
Some guests were reticent to go back to civilization. They feared that going to a town could spoil the whole experience. However, it was just the opposite, because this is not like any other place in the world. This is Puerto Ayora, settled in a lovely part of Santa Cruz Island and inhabited by human beings who have learned to live with nature. Here we visited the Galápagos National Park and Charles Darwin Research Station, so we met our first giants, and the most famous ones. There he was, Lonesome George with his unloved girlfriends from Pinta Island. We saw Diego chasing Española female tortoises, and we counted the dozens of babies that someday soon will be repatriated to their home islands thanks to the efforts of the Park, Darwin Station and Lindblad family.
We wanted to see them in the wild as well, so after lunch in the highlands, we rode to an area that happens to be in the migratory route of tortoises, and there, surrounded by green fields of grass, several roamed free grazing on anything that was on their way. New species of birds were spotted in the area, like tree finches, the elusive woodpecker finch and the always wonderful vermillion flycatcher. Some guests went even higher to eighteen hundred feet high to see a couple of sink holes known as “Los Gemelos” surrounded by Scalesias, a plant genus unique to these islands.
We came back on board happy of having shared our day with tortoises, colorful birds and the good people of the Galápagos Islands.
We have sailed through the Galápagos archipelago for half a week. We have seen some of its most famous species, swallow-tailed gulls, flightless cormorants, marine iguanas, found no where else in the world. We have swum among sea lions and turtles, but there is one thing we haven’t done yet, and that’s to meet the giants of this archipelago, the tortoises.
Some guests were reticent to go back to civilization. They feared that going to a town could spoil the whole experience. However, it was just the opposite, because this is not like any other place in the world. This is Puerto Ayora, settled in a lovely part of Santa Cruz Island and inhabited by human beings who have learned to live with nature. Here we visited the Galápagos National Park and Charles Darwin Research Station, so we met our first giants, and the most famous ones. There he was, Lonesome George with his unloved girlfriends from Pinta Island. We saw Diego chasing Española female tortoises, and we counted the dozens of babies that someday soon will be repatriated to their home islands thanks to the efforts of the Park, Darwin Station and Lindblad family.
We wanted to see them in the wild as well, so after lunch in the highlands, we rode to an area that happens to be in the migratory route of tortoises, and there, surrounded by green fields of grass, several roamed free grazing on anything that was on their way. New species of birds were spotted in the area, like tree finches, the elusive woodpecker finch and the always wonderful vermillion flycatcher. Some guests went even higher to eighteen hundred feet high to see a couple of sink holes known as “Los Gemelos” surrounded by Scalesias, a plant genus unique to these islands.
We came back on board happy of having shared our day with tortoises, colorful birds and the good people of the Galápagos Islands.
