The National Geographic Endeavour is ready to anchor at Academy Bay, the village appears in the distance as we come up on deck just right before breakfast to have our first glimpse of civilization.
Our expedition leader Vanessa makes an announcement: “We are ready to disembark!” so the day begins, first with a very informative visit to the Charles Darwin Research Center to learn about the several conservation programs, including the signature Breeding Center for Giant Tortoises. Our guests learned a great deal from the naturalists regarding this specific program.
After this visit we took some time to explore the town, several of our guests enjoyed this very much for they had a unique opportunity to see local people, shop around and of course visit the fishermen’s wharf where they found sea lions, frigate birds, sea gulls and pelicans, all waiting for the catch of the day.
Later in the morning our guests chose from several options offered, some went to a local school to learn about the support provided by the Lindblad/National Geographic fund to the local community and some other guests chose to bike their way to local organic farm to do sugar cane and coffee tasting. The adult guests were in for a treat since they got to taste the local sugar cane spirit that had just been recently brewed.
We had a delicious lunch catered by Aquelarre Restaurant in the highlands of Santa Cruz Island, and after this we headed directly to the giant tortoise reserve, in order to have our own natural, personal and close experience with them.
As we drove into the forest they were several giants at the distance, some even on the very road so we hand to drive around them. We parked the bus and were ready to start our adventure, we saw quite a few feeding on the grass and some others resting by a fresh water pond. The young explorers had a great time learning about the past of these reptiles and the recent theories on how they arrived to the Galapagos.
What a magnificent day on Santa Cruz Island a true mix of Galapagos culture and nature.
