This morning we visited my hometown, Puerto Ayora, located in the southern shore of Santa Cruz Island, in the center of the archipelago. This is the largest settlement in the Galapagos and home to the Galapagos National Park and the Charles Darwin Station. In Puerto Ayora most of the tourism is concentrated on the waterfront. There are many gift shops, grocery stores, restaurants, and bars.
In the morning, we visited the Giant Tortoise Breeding Center, a successful program that restores giant tortoises to their natural habitat. Here baby tortoises are raised until they are big enough to be reintroduce to their natural habitat so that introduced predators cannot harm them. We also visited Super Diego a famous reproductive male from Española Island. Diego has helped us with more than 2,000 of his offspring’s, providing hope for his species, which came very close to extinction.
From Puerto Ayora, we drove up through the transition zone of vegetation to a wonderful location in the highlands- a giant tortoise natural reserve. Our guests had a relaxing afternoon walking among Galapagos tortoises in the wild. This was a wonderful day learning about Galapagos giant tortoises, their biology, behavior and their importance in history. These huge reptiles played an important role in the development of Charles Darwin´s theory of evolution.
