Today we dropped anchor at Academy Bay, located in Santa Cruz Island. The town is named Puerto Ayora after Ecuador’s first president: Isidro Ayora.
This is the most populated Island of all in the Archipelago and where the Galapagos National Park and the Charles Darwin Research Station are based. These are our two most important institutions in Galapagos as far as conservation is concerned. They are both independent and separately funded and this has contributed to the continuing successful research at the park. We are restoring these islands to how they were before human intervention, the captive breeding program of the Station is the mayor attraction. Here we saw the different shapes of tortoises depending on the environment where they came from: saddle-shaped for dry islands and dome-shaped for moist islands. This is a classic example of adaptation and evolution which is what Darwinism is all about.
Later we moved to the highlands of this island where the weather felt much cooler and we visited a traditional sugar cane press. We sampled the sugar juice and for those courageous enough we sampled moonshine made from that fermented juice. Also in this same place called El Trapiche, we were explained in detail the process that coffee follows in order to become an organic product, consumed mostly by our visitors but also available for sale as whole grain or grinded.
Later in the day we had lunch in a private restaurant where the owners of the place changed the landscape once full of crops for a heaven for the giant tortoises. This was the place where our guests could have a private time with some giant individuals of the dome morphology.
The day finished late after dinner with musicians and dancers from the community who visited us onboard to perform their art. Another beautiful day comes to an end.
