Santa Cruz Island
Today we spent our day on Santa Cruz Island in the central area of the Galápagos Archipelago. After breakfast we took our Zodiacs and went to the Galápagos National Park Service dock and walked to the Fausto Llerena giant tortoise breeding center. There we observed the many different aspects of the breeding program; we saw the youngest tortoises as well as some of the adults.
We also had the opportunity to see very famous Lonesome George in his corral. He is the last tortoise of his kind, and a reminder to all what happens when over-exploitation of a natural resource goes to the extreme of total annihilation of a species. These days Lonesome George shares his corral with two females from a different island; we still hope he may mate with one or both these females and even though they would not be the same kind at least there is a bit of hope we can still obtain some viable eggs to incubate. So far this year there haven’t been any, but we still have our hopes on him and his females.
After we left the breeding center we headed to the town of Puerto Ayora where we had the chance to see how the locals live and to contribute to the local economy. We then headed to the highlands of Santa Cruz; we went to a local farm and learned about the way they produce sugar cane and the way they produce the local aguardiente; this is a very strong drink because of its high alcohol content. They also showed us the whole process, from the beginning to the end, on how to make coffee. After this we went to a local restaurant for lunch.
This afternoon we went looking for Galápagos giant tortoises in the wild, and also walked into a small lava tunnel. We were very lucky and found three tortoises in their natural habitat. These animals stayed in the moist uplands and did not go to the breeding lowlands. Most of the tortoises went to mate and will return to the highlands in about two months. We returned aboard after a great day on Santa Cruz Island.
