During the wee hours of the morning on a lovely calm sea, we navigated north. Just before dawn, Captain Teran had our boson drop the ship’s anchor in Academy Bay, Santa Cruz Island. The bay was crowded with yachts, boats and ships of all sizes, and we could see the buildings of the town of Puerto Ayora lining the coast. In the distance the mist-covered slopes of the island were green and gray.
Puerto Ayora is the largest town in the Galapagos archipelago and has a population of more than 20,000. It is home to the headquarters of both the Galapagos National Park Service and the Charles Darwin Research Station. We enjoyed a bountiful breakfast of eggs rancheros and fresh tropical fruits and afterwards boarded our fleet of Zodiacs for a short ride to the park dock.
This morning we visited the giant tortoise breeding center which, for the past 40 years, has been a successful joint project of the Charles Darwin Research Station and the National Park Service. We saw the tiny hatchling tortoises that are raised and protected in captivity until they are old enough to be repatriated to the islands from which they came. We heard the success story of how the gravely endangered tortoises on Española Island were brought back from the brink of extinction: from 14 adult individuals to several thousand currently found in the wild! And we learned about a special male tortoise called Super Diego. He was collected in the 1930s in Galapagos and taken to the San Diego Zoo. But 40 years later, he was returned to the islands, becoming a very productive father responsible for many hundreds of the repatriated Española tortoises.
Our guides also showed us a couple large male land iguanas that are part of an iguana breeding project, and then they pointed us to the main road to town. Off we all went at our individual speeds, some of us stopping to shop along the way in one or more of the many colorful boutiques. We found the fish market easily and enjoyed watching and photographing the flock of juvenile pelicans and a couple fat sea lions begging for fish scraps. When we reached The Rock café we sat for a moment and enjoyed a glass of juice or ordered a snack. Naturalist Walter took a dozen of our guests on the first bus at 1030 up to the highlands town of Bella Vista. Here we climbed onto mountain bikes and pedaled three miles – mostly uphill! – to a small farm, El Trapiche, where we all gathered and learned how organic coffee and sugar cane are grown here and processed. We enjoyed multiple cups of coffee, and sugar cane juice with or without a splash of either sour orange juice or cane liquor!
We continued by bus further into the highlands and stopped for lunch at a restaurant where we enjoyed cool Ecuadorian beer, delicious grilled chicken and homemade raisin cake. After lunch we re-boarded the buses for a short drive to a farm that is on the southwestern slopes of Santa Cruz, where giant tortoises wander year-round in search of lush vegetation and water from rain pools. There were well over 2 dozen tortoises in the area and some were really enormous males! Many of us spent time photographing the tortoises – others were distracted by the World Cup semi-final game between Argentina and Holland. We explored a double-decker lava tunnel and returned to the port in time to watch Argentina win on penalty kicks!
Back on the ship in the evening and after dinner, we were entertained by the musicians and dancers of EcoArte, a local group of students and teachers. It has been another wonderful day in Las Islas Encantadas!
