Santa Cruz Island
Today we arrived at Santa Cruz Island very early in the morning. After breakfast we disembarked at the Galápagos National Park Dock and were immediately greeted by a small group of marine iguanas. We walked through a small forest of giant prickly pear cactus – the greenery here is amazing since this island receives a lot of moisture as heavy mist and rain.
We spent our morning at the captive breeding center for giant tortoises. We even met a couple of famous tortoises – one of course is the very famous Lonesome George. The other one, also quite famous “Diego”. Both are emblems of conservation; the first is the last pure individual tortoise from Pinta Island; the other one with hundreds of descendants from Española island.
While we were enjoying the morning at the Darwin Center, our Expedition Leader Paula Tagle was also very busy. She was the hostess of a group of kids from a local school. This is one of the most important programs Lindblad Expeditions is currently supporting as a way to include the local population in conservation and education. These kids had a great time taking a Zodiac ride in a bay and had a briefing about the archipelago and our role in the conservation of the islands.
Our afternoon was spent looking for Galápagos giant tortoises in the wild, observing impressive sink holes and giant daisies in a humid forest up in the highlands.
We returned aboard after a great day on Santa Cruz Island.
