Santa Cruz Island
This is the island with the largest town in the Galápagos and also the center of commercial activities. We started our day going to visit the Tortoise Breeding Center, adoptive home of an icon for conservation “Lonesome George,” this giant tortoise is the lone survivor of the Island of Pinta. He was brought here to start an already long-term breeding program to save his species. Also, he was available for pictures. His is not the only island that suffered years of predation in the hands of pirates, whalers and buccaneers that stop to fill their boats with tortoises for food.
We also have a tortoise nicknamed Diego because it once lived in California in the late sixties and had to be return to the Galápagos to join others from the island of Espanola. This has been a more successful program as more than one thousand tortoises have been returned to the island and have started to breed on their own.
After this wonderful walk that also included baby tortoises waiting for their fifth birthday when they can go to the wild, we all walked back through to the town of Puerto Ayora for some shopping. The local artisans make all kind of beautiful souvenirs for the visitors to take home.
At the end of town we stopped for a break at a place called The Rock where they serve nice juices. Our next destinations was going to be the highlands, so we boarded local buses. Some people signed up for bike riding so they had to get off the bus before the end and get on the iron horse for some exercise along a roller-coaster of a road.
We made a very interesting stop at another place to see and learn the process local farmers use to make liquor out of sugar cane and also the elaborations of products from coffee. Not too far away from here was the restaurant with a swimming pool and volleyball court where the kids had a lot of fun before charging energies with a delicious lunch.
After that we returned to the busses to go see a fantastic geological formation known as a lava tube. After that we found lots of huge giant tortoise everywhere — it was like being with the dinosaurs in the present time. Great green pastures with giants were the end of the afternoon, after which we returned to town and from there the ship to celebrate a fantastic day in paradise.
