Santa Cruz
We woke up and found ourselves anchored in Academy Bay of Santa Cruz Island, the second largest of the group of islands and also the economic capital of the province of Galápagos.
Early in the morning after breakfast we headed into the main dock to reach Darwin Station by a short bus ride through the town of Puerto Ayora, the largest of the province with about 15,000 people.
Getting off the bus we walked into the National Park area for the visit of the giant tortoise breeding and rearing program facilities. These started to operate about four decades ago with the mission of bringing some of the tortoises and also some land iguanas population back to stable numbers from near extinction in some of the cases. Especially the tortoise population from Pinta Island whose only survivor was kept here for many years in hope of recovery, but all efforts were finally in vain because he just passed away a couple of weeks ago. So sad.
We continued our expedition to see more giant tortoises, especially the one from the island of Española, which after predation by pirates came near to extinction with only 15 individuals left alive. One male lived in California, his name was Diego—he was named after the San Diego zoo where he spent many years. Now the population is substantially increasing into the thousands. It has become one of the most successful breeding projects that have been carried out.
Finally we meet the future generations of tortoises. They are very small to begin with, then after five years of growth, we’ll send them back out into their natural habitat. Now we have time for shopping! This very unique town has a great sense of tourism and they actually end up giving a percentage of their money back to the conservation projects. This helps the economy in a very sustainable way, which also helps to conserve the precious place we are blessed to be in.
From there we boarded a bus that took us to a local sugarcane press where we were able to try the juices of this sweet, juicy plant. We also were able to try the local coffee distributer’s chocolate-covered coffee beans, coffee, and also purchase these wonderful products.
After this taste of Galápagos we enjoyed a spectacular walk through an 800-meter lava tube. In this tube we discovered stalactites and a beautiful skylight that resulted from a minor collapse of another entrance flow of lava. It was very convenient to our guests because the restaurant was at the end of the tube. Here we enjoyed a very delicious buffet-style lunch. We also enjoyed some ping pong and the magnificent view of the islands and the ocean from the restaurant deck.
After leaving the restaurant we found another interesting location with geological formations known as the pit craters, which are the result of a rocky roof falling into a emptied magma chamber. Around the area grows special vegetation due to the altitude. Among others one stands out being unusually tall for being a member of the sunflower family. We found a couple of endemic orchids too.
Coming back to town we stopped at a private ranch to visit the giant tortoises that happened to get in here naturally at this time of the year. After so much action we are finally headed back into town for a little visit before going back on board to end a great day.
