The National Geographic Endeavour remained at anchor all day long today at Santa Cruz Island.
At 7:30 am, we all headed up towards the headquarters of the Charles Darwin research station and the National Park. Both institutions work together to assure the island’s conservation. Perhaps the highlight of the morning for all of the guests was our visit to the National Park’s rearing center of giant tortoises. At this site we came across many pens full of baby tortoises as well as adults, and most importantly, our guests were able to learn about the conservational efforts to restore the population of giant tortoises in the Galápagos.
Later in the morning as we were riding a bus to get to the restaurant, we stopped at the Trapiche, which is a very rustic sugar cane farm that works with animal power, using a mule to push the mill that grinds the sugar. After lunch, we continued to explore the highlands of Santa Cruz on a search of the endemic species of giant tortoise from this Island, considered to be the second largest after the ones from Isabela Island.
Because the rainy season is starting, we observed lush vegetation and big fresh water ponds, so the conditions were ideal for our purpose, and many tortoises were found, even some that were actively walking around and feeding on plants. Some of the biggest tortoises we encountered must have been nearly five hundred pounds, watching them move up close was a marvelous show!
After all of our activities, we returned back to the town. During this day, our guests were given two opportunities to walk in the town of Puerto Ayora, many went shopping and also enjoyed getting to know a little bit more about the local people of the islands.
