Today we are at Academy Bay on Santa Cruz Island, our destination for today. In the morning we landed at Puerto Ayora and explored the Charles Darwin Research Station. Here, we learned about the conservation programs carried out by this institution and the Galapagos National Park Service in order to restore endangered ecosystems.
At the end of the morning we took buses and headed to the highlands of Santa Cruz. Some of us visited Tomás de Berlanga School. This school is sponsored by Lindblad Expeditions and National Geographic as part of our commitment with the local communities. The rest of the guests took the option of visiting a local farm that produces coffee, sugar cane and rum.
The highlights in the highlands are many. The forest, the land birds, the lava tunnels and the Galápagos giant tortoises. These gentle reptiles used to be at the brink of extinction in past decades but they have come back due conservation work started on the islands.
It’s estimated that we now have more than 5000 giant tortoises on Santa Cruz island! This is a healthy population and it keeps growing.
