Today we visited Santa Cruz Island, this is the second largest island in the Galapagos archipelago and it has the largest human population as well. Here we also have the headquarters of the Galapagos National Park Service and the Charles Darwin Research Station.
In the morning we disembarked at Puerto Ayora and then we visited the Charles Darwin Research Station. We learned about the conservation programs carried out by the Galápagos National Park and the Charles Darwin Research Station. There are more than seven hundred tortoises as part of the captive breeding program, some of them are adults, some are babies and others are young individuals.
Puerto Ayora is the largest town in the archipelago; the tourism industry is the main source of income in this economy. Here we have schools, high schools and universities for the education of the local people. Puerto Ayora is a nice, clean town and it was part of our experience as we visited this island we spent some time exploring the shops and art galleries.
In the afternoon we explored the highlands of Santa Cruz under a tropical sun. This region is green throughout the year and it is home for many of the endemic species that inhabit the Galapagos. The Galápagos giant tortoises are distributed across a large part of the rainforest on Santa Cruz. There is a population of more than five thousand individuals on this island only. Today we spotted a lot of them, females as well as many large males.
Santa Cruz is an amazing place, it is a large island with many attractions for the visitors, and it is home to a great number of the iconic species that make this archipelago unique.
