Santa Cruz Island
The Galapagos Islands attractions surprise us as days pass by, and today we had a taste of it by visiting the center of the Archipelago. Santa Cruz Island is one of the most symbolic of all islands we find in the Galapagos, and a visit to the Charles Darwin Research Station was the best way to begin our journey. The first stop of the visit was to enjoy and learn about the baby tortoises. At this moment we got to witness how the breeding program starts with very little baby tortoises that in the future will become tremendously big. Farther in the visit, we had the opportunity of seeing the adults; especially those of Española Island.
The Española breeding program is considered one of the most successful restoration projects of the Research Station as most of the population has been reinstated; but the program would not have been so effective without a very important member: Diego from the San Diego zoo. The visit continued to astonish us with the breeding program for land iguanas. We had a marvelous experience learning about restoration efforts in order to bring the land iguana reign back to the modern era. At the end of the visit we had a delightful time in town as we experienced the everyday living of the galapagueño community.
The complements of exploration were going to be found in the afternoon by visiting the giant tortoise Reserve in the highlands of Santa Cruz. A marvelous sky was the perfect match for beautiful color displays of nature. The splendor of the place was clear once we witnessed the presence of dozens of giant tortoises all over the area. We had the opportunity to see big males feeding on plants like a delicacy of nature.
Farther into the trail, we had the opportunity to enter a lava tube in order to experience how lava used to move back when the island was still active. At the end of the visit, we had a magical view of the ocean from the highest point of the trail, as we enjoyed a delightful cup of coffee. The last chapter of our exploration brought us to one of the most awe-inspiring volcanic structures of the Galapagos: the pit craters. The vegetation found in the area was something out of this planet as we were surrounded by the tallest daisy trees on the planet: Scalesias. At the end of our exploration we experienced a magical moment as the sun set behind the horizon telling us that tomorrow the Galapagos paradise would bring us more surprises.
