Santa Cruz Island
We dropped the anchor at six in the morning at Academy Bay, situated on the southern side of Santa Cruz. Santa Cruz Island is the second largest Island in the Galapagos with a total area of approximately six hundred miles, and is the most populated with nearly seventeen thousand people; is also where the headquarters of both the National Park and the Charles Darwin station are located.
After breakfast we went to visit the National Park’s rearing center of giant tortoises; our guests were so amazed to see the conservation efforts of the park to restore the original population of giant tortoises of the Islands. A lot of hatchlings were very active, walking and foraging inside their fences. Shortly after our visit our guests had some free time to walk through town. Many guests went shopping, while some others just enjoyed watching the town’s daily life, like the fishermen in a harbor cleaning fish while pelicans tried to steal pieces away from them.
Before heading up to the highlands of Santa Cruz to a local restaurant for our luncheon, we stopped at two different places, one was a sugar cane mill and the other one was a lava tunnel, this added a unique experience to our morning’s visit.
In the afternoon, we visited los Gemelos, which are two giant pit craters surrounded by a unique flora and fauna; and we also went on the search of giant tortoises. Our tortoise hunt was very successful, since we lost count!
Our day was very special because apart from finding a lot of flora and fauna unique to this area, we also saw the other side of Galapagos – the people.
