Santa Cruz & North Seymour Islands
With a warm, humid breeze we headed to the island of Santa Cruz to pay a visit to the Charles Darwin Research Station, home to the legendary Lonesome George: the last surviving tortoise from a northern island named Pinta.
Giant tortoises have long existed in the Galápagos. Long before mankind got here, and quite undisturbed for most of their history unless a volcano erupted and reshaped their realm. The very day man set foot on the islands, their years of predation and horror started. And those were not actually just years, but centuries of continuous visits carried out by pirates and whale hunters. These left behind a wake of destruction and sorrow in an empire where the dominant species had always been these large and harmless reptiles, which had so far managed to stay alive on these remote volcanic islands, isolated from the nearest major land mass of mainland South America.Here at the Charles Darwin Research Station there is a group of people that dedicate their lives to protect and restore the endangered ecosystems and their inhabitants, which in most cases are two types of reptiles: the emblematic Galápagos giant tortoise and the unique Galápagos land iguanas. These organisms have been affected by human-related activities resulting of colonization and the introduction of alien species that have disrupted the unique flora and fauna of the place.
Once we concluded our visit, and having enjoyed the first encounter with the real giant tortoises and their babies at the breeding center, we took a bus ride to the highlands in order to have more adventures and find new things.
The island has several vegetation zones and the area of our final destination was akin to a tropical forest: amazingly lush and green, the result of the rains, with fresh grass all around. These uplands turned out to be the right spot to find giant tortoises in the wild. Here we enjoyed several sightings - there were so many of different sizes and different ages!
On returning aboard, we repositioned the ship to North Seymour Islet to continue the second part of our expedition. Unlike Santa Cruz, this small, flat rocky island is dry and covered with dwarf trees and small cacti scattered all over. The reddish dusty terrain is home to land iguanas that slowly move across the scrubland in search of prickly pears, as well as the ever-charming blue-footed boobies that delighted us with their dances, sky pointing and whistling.
North Seymour is an amazing place due to the wildlife, home to a large number of frigate birds that nest throughout the year as well as the swallow-tailed gulls and a large breeding colony of Galápagos sea lions.
The whole experience of the expedition was truly amazing, and we are dying to see more over the course of the next few days.
With a warm, humid breeze we headed to the island of Santa Cruz to pay a visit to the Charles Darwin Research Station, home to the legendary Lonesome George: the last surviving tortoise from a northern island named Pinta.
Giant tortoises have long existed in the Galápagos. Long before mankind got here, and quite undisturbed for most of their history unless a volcano erupted and reshaped their realm. The very day man set foot on the islands, their years of predation and horror started. And those were not actually just years, but centuries of continuous visits carried out by pirates and whale hunters. These left behind a wake of destruction and sorrow in an empire where the dominant species had always been these large and harmless reptiles, which had so far managed to stay alive on these remote volcanic islands, isolated from the nearest major land mass of mainland South America.Here at the Charles Darwin Research Station there is a group of people that dedicate their lives to protect and restore the endangered ecosystems and their inhabitants, which in most cases are two types of reptiles: the emblematic Galápagos giant tortoise and the unique Galápagos land iguanas. These organisms have been affected by human-related activities resulting of colonization and the introduction of alien species that have disrupted the unique flora and fauna of the place.
Once we concluded our visit, and having enjoyed the first encounter with the real giant tortoises and their babies at the breeding center, we took a bus ride to the highlands in order to have more adventures and find new things.
The island has several vegetation zones and the area of our final destination was akin to a tropical forest: amazingly lush and green, the result of the rains, with fresh grass all around. These uplands turned out to be the right spot to find giant tortoises in the wild. Here we enjoyed several sightings - there were so many of different sizes and different ages!
On returning aboard, we repositioned the ship to North Seymour Islet to continue the second part of our expedition. Unlike Santa Cruz, this small, flat rocky island is dry and covered with dwarf trees and small cacti scattered all over. The reddish dusty terrain is home to land iguanas that slowly move across the scrubland in search of prickly pears, as well as the ever-charming blue-footed boobies that delighted us with their dances, sky pointing and whistling.
North Seymour is an amazing place due to the wildlife, home to a large number of frigate birds that nest throughout the year as well as the swallow-tailed gulls and a large breeding colony of Galápagos sea lions.
The whole experience of the expedition was truly amazing, and we are dying to see more over the course of the next few days.
