Santa Cruz Island
We arrived early this morning to Santa Cruz Island. This island is home to the largest town in the Galápagos Islands with more than 16,000 inhabitants. This is also the island we came to see some of the projects to breed and repatriate giant tortoises. In the center we met famous tortoise Lonesome George from Pinta Island. This is the last pure individual from that island; this morning he was sunbathing next to his two female companions. We also learned about the successful story of the tortoises from Española Island; there in one of the corrals we found one male known as Diego and his five female companions.
Apart from these famous tortoises, we also saw the juveniles that will soon be release in the wild. These juveniles are the future adults that will repopulate the islands with their descendants. After exploring the center we headed towards the town. Since today is a national holiday in our country we saw the locals putting all kinds of colorful ornaments on the graves of their late family members. We enjoyed the typical drink of the season in our country which is “Colada morada,” this is a thick sweet drink made of purple corn flour and cooked with herbs and fruits.
The afternoon we spent it looking for Galápagos giant tortoises in the wild. There must have been nearly forty feeding on grasses. Theses gentle giants are the most primitive and at the same time fascinating looking creatures one can cross paths with. Many were wallowing in the mud, others curiously observed us walking by and then disappearing into their shells with a brief hiss.
Our day is over but we still have so much to see and explore.
