Santa Cruz Island
Today we visited the Iconic Island of Santa Cruz, well known for its healthy population of giant tortoises and for the headquarters of the Charles Darwin Research Station.
After breakfast we landed at the northern part of the Island, where we boarded buses for our visit; this was the first time in the week where all of us had the chance to cross one island, traveling through many vegetation levels and reaching an altitude of 600 meters above sea level. Lush vegetation colored the island; on our first stop we searched for tortoises in the wild. Since this is the breeding season for these reptiles, they were quite abundant, and it was so nice to see them in their habitat, surrounded by grass and ponds of fresh water.
Later in the morning went to a local restaurant for our lunch and afterwards we boarded the buses again to go to Puerto Ayora, the largest town in Galápagos. Here we visited the headquarters of the Charles Darwin Station, where the small baby tortoises were the highlight. For most of our guests it was so special to see the rearing program of giant tortoises step by step; it was hard to believe those babies were going to become giants. After the visit to the Darwin Station we had free time to spend in town, so most went shopping, and others took a photo-oriented walk through town.
