It was time for us to leave the wild world behind and follow the steps of civilization and its development. We soon arrived to the largest town in the enchanted archipelago and it was time to explore the breeding center of the Galapagos National Park service.
After a dry landing at a concrete dock, we entered the Galapagos National Park service facilities and encountered many of the Galapagos giant tortoises. It was sunny, but many of these reptiles were eating at this time of the day. The facilities of the breeding center, in addition to helping to restore the dynasty of the giant tortoises, also help to promote environmental education to the locals that visit this area during the week.
After watching the big male dome shaped shell tortoises, we headed to another corral, home to Diego. Diego is a male giant tortoise that was brought back to the islands from the San Diego Zoo. He is now the big star among the many conservation projects. He is known to be the one that saved the species of Espanola Island from their own extinction. Thanks to Diego, two other males and 12 females, over 1800 neonates repatriated to Espanola. “Super Diego” is his new name!
We rode on a bus for about 30 minutes to get to the highlands, where we visited a sugar cane press. Some of us chose instead to bike along the paved road for about 4 miles to get to this place, where we learned about the coffee making process, and other products from the sugar cane juice. It was interesting to see some sweet juice turn into some strong white lightning alcohol. I think this visit was a nice taste of the local flavor to learn how some of the local families have developed their own processes to make these products.
After lunch we got to see many giant tortoises in the wild. Huge male giant tortoises were found grazing along the greenery of the humid zone at the highlands of Santa Cruz. We found a couple of adult giant tortoises mating in the bushes for several minutes. We are heading into the mating season of these reptiles. As we walked around the farmlands, pintail ducks were enjoying the murky water of the rain ponds. It was a completely different ecosystem and landscape once we were up in the highlands. All of the sudden we left the dry-looking arid zone for a new world of green and lush everywhere. At the end we hiked into a lava tube and learned more about the geological structure of places like this. Many interesting features once inside, made us feel amazed at our exploration of the Galapagos underground.
