This morning we woke moored in the bay at Puerto Ayora on the island of Santa Cruz. It’s a town of 18,00 people and the economic heart of the Galápagos. We toured the Charles Darwin Research Station, which breeds tortoises and reintroduces them back into the wild.
Our group boarded busses for the cool highlands, where some of us visited a local school. Our guests brought books to donate.
The rest of us dropped in on a demonstration at a traditional sugar cane mill, called El Trapiche. The sugar cane juice boiled down into syrup and some of it is distilled into rum. Senior Cabrerra showed off the potency of his 120 proof rum by throwing some into the fire, resulting into an explosion of fire. A few guests went back for seconds and thirds.
After lunch we walked through epiphyte-laden endemic scalesia trees on the way to Los Gemelos pit craters. These geological formations, shrouded in misty rain, have become an icon of Santa Cruz island.
