After a few hours of navigation, we arrived at Santa Cruz Island, where the largest city of Galapagos is located. We disembarked at the national park pier and soon headed to visit the breeding center and the facilities of the Charles Darwin Research Station.
One in the breeding center, we got to learn about many of the projects happening in the Galapagos to restore the dynasty of the giant tortoises in this archipelago. Super Diego is certainly one of the main characters of the visitor site; he is the tortoise that came back from the San Diego Zoo to help save the species from Espanola Island that was almost extinct. So far this is one of the most successful projects in the breeding center and many of his babies are already reproducing naturally in the wild.
After learning about giant tortoises and many of the successful conservation projects in Galapagos, we headed for the highlands of Santa Cruz, where we visited a small hacienda with a homemade sugar cane press. Here we learned about the process of sugar production and alcohol production from sugar cane. After lunch, we visited the area where the giant tortoises are found in the wild, and we certainly saw several of them just grazing on the grass and cooling off in the rain water ponds.
An interesting visit to a double decker lava tube was also offered; we walked into the lava tube and got to learn about how it is formed and the different processes that it takes to have such an incredible smooth shape.
At night time, we had a visit from the director of the Charles Darwin Foundation who gave a speech about all the projects that are going on and have accomplished many positive results for the conservation of the enchanted archipelago. We closed our day with local musicians and dancers that came on board to perform, delighting us with endemic rhythm.
