We arrived to the busiest and largest town in the enchanted archipelago, Puerto Ayora. Once anchored in port, after breakfast, we prepared to visit the breeding center of the Galapagos National Park Service, where many kinds of endemic giant tortoises are being bred to restore their dynasty in the wild. Plenty of these efforts can be seen within this facility.
We also passed by the facilities of the Charles Darwin Foundation, and learned about the projects that are currently happening in the archipelago. Within the breeding center we saw species of tortoises from different islands. One of the main goals of this center is to incubate the tortoise’s eggs and hatch them in captivity to later repatriate them back to their home islands once they have reached a safe age. We did see an interesting character, I would say he is the super star of the breeding center and that was “Super Diego,” a giant tortoise form Espanola Island who came from San Diego Zoo around 1977. He was brought back to the islands to help save its species from extinction driven by human predation and other introduced animals on the island of Espanola. We enjoyed seeing tortoises from small babies to the largest and heaviest dome shells that can age over 150 years.
We had a 30 minute bus ride to visit a small local hacienda where we learned about the processes of sugar cane juice transformation into sugar, alcohol and syrup, together with the original homemade coffee production (still done this way on the highlands of this island). Some of us decided to bike a couple of miles to this place while others walked a few miles for exercise. Along the farmlands we saw cattle egrets, coffee plants and giant tortoises. After lunch, we went to visit our famous giant tortoises in the wild. Many very old male tortoises were spotted, some mating on the side of the road, while others were feeding or cooling off in the rain water ponds. This was basically tortoise heaven, where the greenery keeps these giants happy and coming back every season. We also entered a double-decker lava tube; a large geological feature very common in volcanic islands like the Galapagos. What an amazing day we had today! From the bus, as we were heading back to town, we spotted a couple of tortoises mating on the side of the road.
