Santa Cruz Island
We arrived last night at Santa Cruz Island and anchored in Academy Bay. Early this morning we headed towards the Galápagos giant tortoise breeding center. Here we observed some of the varieties of land tortoises as well as Galápagos land iguanas. Our walk also allowed us to observe some of the famous Darwin´s finches hopping around the bushes and the ground as they were looking for food. We also got a chance to see the smallest juvenile tortoises in their training corral.
This was also our opportunity to see Lonesome George; this tortoise is an emblem of conservation as he is the last living tortoise from Pinta Island. We admired his unique saddleback shell with the double hump. As we left the breeding center, we headed to the town of Puerto Ayora, where we explored the town at our own pace and learned a bit more about the way the locals live in Galápagos.
Before lunch up in the highlands we stopped by a local farm where we learned about the process to roast coffee and looked at their distillery. We sampled the coffee and some of the aguardiente produced here.
For the afternoon we went to the only giant daisy forest, and the Gemelos, which means “twins.” These are two large sinkholes surrounded by giant daisies. After walking into the forest and observing the craters we headed to another local farm to look for Galápagos giant tortoises. We found four wild tortoises, including a male and female trying to mate; he chased the female for a while and we were amazed to see how fast they can walk when trying to reproduce. In the end, they were shy and kept walking away to find a suitable place out of view.
After a great day we returned aboard and enjoyed a beautiful sunset.
