Santa Cruz Island
Today we experienced a different way to see the Galápagos; a vibrant town with lots of colourful houses was our first view of land as we headed to the island of Santa Cruz. Puerto Ayora holds the largest population in the Galápagos Islands; it is mostly people that arrived from mainland Ecuador back in the early nineteenth century, and found a deserted, quite isolated place on the planet to settle.
Puerto Ayora nowadays is far from the isolated place it was once before; instead, a wave of people migrated to fulfil their dreams and their place in society. A community of hard working people is now the motor for the outgrowing demand on the busy tourism industry.
Our main goal, at least for the morning, was to visit the Charles Darwin research facilities and to learn form the experts the importance of preserving one of the last paradises on earth. The facilities also have a great display of giant tortoises in captivity, kept under very good care by herpetologists from different places in the world.
The afternoon took us to a different environment, though. After lunch we found ourselves surrounded by Scalesia, or giant daisy plants. This is a great ecological niche for different species of finches and other birds. The dense vegetation also hides a couple of geological formations known as los Gemelos, which impressed us with their magnificence.
The real treat was perhaps the time we all spent later among the giant tortoises in the wild. These impressive reptiles have been roaming this forest for millions of years, and have become an icon for conservation, not only in the Galápagos, but around the world.
Our efforts to preserve this ecosystem are surpassed only by the willingness of the people that inhabits the Galápagos to make this happen. Quite a few laws have been passed in the last few years just to ensure that this will happen, and that the kids of Galápagos will have a land where giant tortoises would keep roaming for a long time…
