Today we travelled to the center of the Galapagos Archipelago where we visited the largest urban area of the Islands. In this location we found the headquarters of the Galapagos National Park Service and the Charles Darwin Research Station working on fascinating projects for sustainability. Early in the morning we disembarked in Puerto Ayora and visited the Charles Darwin Research Station. Here we learned about the conservation programs carried out by the Galápagos National Park. There are more than seven hundred tortoises as part of the captive breeding program, some of them are adults, some are babies and others are young individuals.
Puerto Ayora is the largest town in the archipelago; the tourist industry is becoming the main source of income for the local economy. There are elementary schools, high schools and universities for the education of the young inhabitants. Puerto Ayora is a quaint, clean town and it was a great part of our experience as we visited this island and spent some time exploring its shops and art galleries.
In the afternoon, we explored the highlands. The Galápagos giant tortoises are spread out across a large part of the cloud forest of Santa Cruz. There is a population of more than five thousand individuals on this island only. Today we spotted a lot of them - there were females and many large males. We also got a chance to explore along an underground expedition by hiking into a lava tube. It was drizzling for a small portion of the afternoon, but that didn’t stop us from exploring the area. We got to see how green the islands can be and how beautiful it was to walk around the humid zone and the natural habitat of the giants from the Galapagos.
