We woke up to the view of Puerto Ayora through our windows. This is the largest town in Galapagos and the place where the Charles Darwin Research Station and the headquarter facilities of the Galapagos National Park are found. We started our day visiting the breeding center of the National Park where many conservation projects are underway to restore the dynasty of the Galapagos giant tortoises and to study the best strategies to keep the pristine stage of the Galapagos ecosystems with the least amount of impact. Some well-known residents of the station were spotted within the facilities, such as Super Diego (a saddle back male tortoise brought from San Diego Zoo, California), the male tortoise who helped save the species on Espanola Island. It was also nice to see some of the tortoises from different islands and how they incubate eggs and care for the baby tortoises for their first years of life, before they get repatriated back into the wild.
After visiting the breeding center, we headed to the highlands to visit a local sugar cane press where we had the chance to learn about the processing of brown sugar, coffee and sugar cane alcohol. What a wonderful opportunity to experience a small piece of the social side of the islands.
The Galápagos giant tortoises are distributed across the humid zone on Santa Cruz, a place full of greenery and tall trees which provide shade for these giant reptiles. This afternoon we spotted a lot of them, a few females and many large males. A couple of tortoises were seen in the rainwater ponds, as well as some pintail ducks looking for food between the muddy waters and the shore of the lagoon. We finished our highlands expedition by going on an underground exploration into a double decker lava tube, very rare since most lava tubes are only one level. The geological features within the tube were just breath-taking. There were striations and ripples on a roof of pure basaltic lava, dragged by gravity as the surface got solidified and the inner core was over heated. We got to spend a pleasant time with the giants of the Galapagos and learned so much about the future of the islands with all of the conservation efforts in place.
