Santa Cruz Island
Santa Cruz Island welcomed us with its lush vegetation shining underneath a bright morning sun. This collapsed volcano looked amazingly impressive, rising to its approximately 2000 feet height from sea level, as a green shield decorated by several smaller cones, that are technically described as parasitic cones. We landed and learned that this island has several vegetation zones, and we had walks through some of them. In the morning we explored the arid and littoral area, with its mangroves and holy trees, its thorn bush and mesquites. As we rode to Altair, a lovely cottage in the highlands of Santa Cruz, we enjoyed the view of the transition vegetation area with plants native to Galápagos but also with a few introduced ones, as people had settled on this part of the island. Only 3% of the total land area is not National Park, and most of that 3% is on the southern flanks of Santa Cruz, a fertile land that receives moisture brought up by the southern trade winds.
After lunch we adventured even higher, to 1800 feet, where giant Scalesias are the main plant species of this particular cloud forest where we found interesting and new kinds of birds, such as tree finches, warbler finches and vermillion flycatchers.
Tortoises are the kings and queens of the whole island, migrating through all these vegetation zones depending on the season. And we saw them at the Charles Darwin Research Station, but in the highlands as well. We, as the tortoises, could explore and hike through each different ecosystem of the second largest island in the Galápagos, Santa Cruz.
Santa Cruz Island welcomed us with its lush vegetation shining underneath a bright morning sun. This collapsed volcano looked amazingly impressive, rising to its approximately 2000 feet height from sea level, as a green shield decorated by several smaller cones, that are technically described as parasitic cones. We landed and learned that this island has several vegetation zones, and we had walks through some of them. In the morning we explored the arid and littoral area, with its mangroves and holy trees, its thorn bush and mesquites. As we rode to Altair, a lovely cottage in the highlands of Santa Cruz, we enjoyed the view of the transition vegetation area with plants native to Galápagos but also with a few introduced ones, as people had settled on this part of the island. Only 3% of the total land area is not National Park, and most of that 3% is on the southern flanks of Santa Cruz, a fertile land that receives moisture brought up by the southern trade winds.
After lunch we adventured even higher, to 1800 feet, where giant Scalesias are the main plant species of this particular cloud forest where we found interesting and new kinds of birds, such as tree finches, warbler finches and vermillion flycatchers.
Tortoises are the kings and queens of the whole island, migrating through all these vegetation zones depending on the season. And we saw them at the Charles Darwin Research Station, but in the highlands as well. We, as the tortoises, could explore and hike through each different ecosystem of the second largest island in the Galápagos, Santa Cruz.
