It is early in the morning at Academy Bay, named after the visit of the California Academy of Science in the very early 1900’s.
We are all ready for a great new adventure, this time with the giant tortoises.
We took a dingy ride to the most inhabited and busiest town of Galapagos (Puerto Ayora) in order to visit the Giant Tortoise Breeding Centre Fausto Llerena, where we had the great opportunity to observe very young and tiny tortoises of only few months hatched to celebrities like Diego, the tortoise that started all in the 70’s with his impressive performance in the breeding program giving us hundreds of new descendants for re-populating the island of Espanola/Hood with this majestic creatures. He represents the new hope for many of the different races of tortoises that are endangered.
Puerto Ayora is not only famous for its warm and charming inhabitants but as well for been the hottest place in the Galapagos Islands, that for we moved to the highlands where Don Adriano and Pepe (Adriano’s donkey) received us in his coffee and sugar cane plantation for explaining and demonstrating the artisanal processes for obtaining juice, fire water and panela (brown sugar) of the sugar cane together with the drying, pilling and toasting of the Galapagos coffee.
Few minutes away Oswaldo received us with a fantastic lunch. Oswaldo is a world traveler that has been in the strangest corners of our planet. He loves sharing his adventures at the same time that he points the immense collection of items collected through the years in each one of his voyages.
Coming next we had the tortoises in the wild up in the Reserve El Chato. Our guest had a nature walk around for discovering and learning of these magical animals that made of the islands such a famous place.
The day couldn’t have an end without having a chance to explore the town, free time in town for ice cream while the fisherman come with their catch of the day to be sold to the Galapaguenos, or maybe some shopping and supporting the local economy.
