Santa Cruz Island
We awoke anchored at the central island of the Galápagos archipelago, and we started our full day of activities at 7:30 in the morning by visiting the Charles Darwin Research Station where the Galápagos giant tortoises are reared. Without doubt the main attraction here is the most famous giant tortoise known as Lonesome George, the last surviving specimen of the Pinta Island species. After seeing this famous reptile, we learned how the babies of tortoises from Santa Cruz, Santiago, Española (Hood), and Pinzon are raised here and how they are trained preparing them to return to their home island when ready. Right after the station we had almost one-and-a-half hours to explore the town of Puerto Ayora, to let the explorers feel as if they were natives of this place.
Later on in the morning, we met in a place in town where a bus ride was necessary to reach the highlands to visit a farm known as 'Trapiche.' Some of our guest decided to get in there in a more athletic way: riding a mountain bike. While here, everyone enjoyed watching the artisanal way local people use the sugar cane to extract many different products, as its juice which is the prime product, using a donkey for pulling a sugar mill, which sugar cane passed through. After learning the whole process, we enjoyed the molasses spread on small pieces of cheese. I think that was the most delicious way our bike riders were able to recover their energy after their athletic arrival.
Around midday we were ready for an incredible lunch at Altair restaurant, also located at the highlands. The meal fortified us to face other incredible activities where our guests visited geological formations, the pit craters and the lava tubes, and the giant tortoises in the wild, at a farm known as Rancho Mariposa. Here it is always amazing to see the joy our explorers take in admiring these animals living their way.
At the end of this great adventure we headed back to town in the lowlands and returned to the ship, where we experienced the remains of what we may consider as the last shower of the rainy season in this incredible paradise of Galápagos.
