Today we arrived, after a rocky night of sailing, at Santa
Cruz Island, home of the Charles Darwin Research Station! The Research Station has a highly successful
breeding program for endangered Galapagos Giant Tortoises and land iguanas. We
saw all of these teeny tiny baby tortoises, here is a picture of them!
The different colored numbers on their shells identify which
tortoises came from each island. We saw lots of older tortoises having a tasty
breakfast/brunch of veggies. Here’s a
photograph.
This next marvel of photography is of saddleback
tortoises. These tortoises adapted this
shell shape - and also longer legs and necks - so that they could reach tall
cactuses on the dry islands – sort of like giraffes. In contrast, the dome shell tortoises
(pictured earlier) are found on the wetter islands where plenty of food is
available on the ground.
After we explored the Research Station, we headed to a
working family farm where we saw how they make coffee and sugar cane juice,
candy (and booze). I chewed a delightful
piece of sugar cane and enjoyed sugar cane juice with bitter orange.
Next, after lunch at an island restaurant called
The Narwhale, we went into the highlands
where the giant tortoises roam. The
farmers figured out two things up here – (1) no fence can keep out the tortoises,
and (2) letting tourists pay to come on your farm and hang out with a bunch of
free range tortoises is good business! Here
I am with my new buddy Tipper the Tortoise.
We also saw a group of tortoises enjoying an afternoon mud bath.
And we came upon this cute couple enjoying an amorous moment
– although the girl tortoise seemed to want a playful game of tag as she kept
“running” away – at top lumbering tortoise speed – about 1 mile a week.
Finally, we got to hike into a lava tube – this
one is a double decker with one lava tube on top of another.
