Santa Cruz Island
After a very calm night passage we woke up at anchored in Academy Bay, Santa Cruz.
Today we see two very important types of inhabitants of the islands: giant tortoises and humans. Puerto Ayora is a small boomtown with all the things that come with such development: ugly, unregulated building mixed with charming villas, shops and restaurants. But at arrival there is much to see and do in this coastal village and newcomers are usually pleasantly surprised.
Before we visited town there was something more important to do — it is the tortoises that most people come to see at Santa Cruz. This relatively big island hosts a healthy population of giant tortoises as well the first breeding center founded by the Charles Darwin Station and the National Park of Galápagos. Both institutions have their headquarters here, right next to the breeding center. We learned about the successes and difficulties of the restoration projects that began in the late sixties. It is with great pleasure that we can say that the tortoises have a much brighter outlook than when the breeding program started. Slightly fewer than 5,000 tortoises have been bred and repatriated so far, and now three breeding centers keep in their corrals many more young tortoises to be repatriated each coming year.
After seeing the Charles Darwin Station, it was time to take the coaches into the hills of Santa Cruz, where we made a quick stop to taste locally grown coffee and sugar cane juice. Shortly after we enjoyed lunch with a spectacular view. Here we also explored a long lava tube, one of the many hidden under the surface of this large shield volcano.
Later we saw more geologic features — two pit craters — voids left by uprising lava. We had a last stop to see more giant tortoises, this time in their natural habitat unrestricted and roaming free. All in all we have seen a lot of human impact on the island, some good some bad. As well we have seen the very different highlands of a large Galápagos island, with different, more tropical vegetation and wonderful, giant reptiles walking around as they have done for thousands of years. Hopefully many future generations of Galápagos inhabitants, both human and reptile, will enjoy this beautiful environment so unique in this world.
