Santa Cruz Island
This morning we entered Academy Bay in the southern realm of Santa Cruz Island, which has the largest human population in the archipelago. For the first part of our morning we went to the giant tortoise breeding center, where we learned in more detail about this successful project to save tortoises from extinction.
The breeding center offers a great opportunity to observe some of the tortoises from the different islands. We saw the saddle back tortoises from Española, as well as those with the dome shape carapace from Isabela and from this island. The project has about one thousand youngsters which are released at the age of four years on the island of their parent’s origin.
The surroundings are also quite different; we find here giant prickly pear cactus which attain more than twenty feet in height and about two feet in diameter. Most of these cacti are older than one hundred years.
After the breeding center we went to the highlands where we walked into a lava tunnel and had lunch with an incredible view while surrounded by green vegetation.
For the second part of our day we looked for giant tortoises in the wild. There were many tortoises, most of them males, and few young animals were also spotted. After looking for tortoises we went higher to walk into a cloud forest; we observed the Galápagos giant daisies as well as a couple of geological formations known as the Gemelos. These are two large craters that were the result of collapse after volcanic eruptions emptied the magma chambers beneath them.
As we left the highlands, we returned to the lowlands and then to our ship. We had a great evening with some local musicians and dancers with their colorful costumes and typical dances onboard.
