Another early start this morning for our full day on the island of Santa Cruz and our first sighting of the Galapagos tortoises. First stop was the Charles Darwin Research Station where we saw the famous tortoises Lonesome George (once thought to be the last of his species until his relatives were found on another island) and Diego, who was repatriated from the San Diego zoo and who subsequently saved his species from distinction. There is a program here for hatching and bringing up babies who take around 25 years to come to maturation in the wild and who take several years to grow to a size where they will be safe from predators. Santa Cruz, the second largest of the Galapagos Islands, has about 18,000 inhabitants with strict controls to prevent new people from moving from the mainland to the Islands in order to control the population.
We walked into town and made the shopkeepers happy with a few purchases and then boarded our bus for a demonstration of making molasses, sugar and moonshine from sugar cane. Must mention here that Larry took one for the team and had a shot of the moonshine which he said did not have enough o's to describe how smooooooth is was.
A mishap occurred en route to lunch on the bus when I got up and dumped my camera onto the floor. Heavy sigh. It was not happy and refused to focus properly and made me work hard for any photo I attempted to take the remainder of the day. My hero, knowing me better than anyone after all these years, brought along an extra lens so I am back in business as on this evening. (The same thing happened to me in India, as Joan remembers.)
We dined alfresco at a hotel owned by an American and and met and made friends with woman in her early 80's who was there selling jewelry. By the time Ron was done talking with her, she invited him to stay with her the next time we visited and she also sat and had lunch with us. She was originally from Belgium talked extensively about her life, mourning the changes in the islands over the last 50 years. Too many people for her now, I think, and too much like other towns in Ecuador. Her daughter is a famous photographer, Tui De Roy.
After lunch, I walked in a forest of endemic Scalesia trees, one of the rarest ecosystems in the islands. We saw Los Gemelos - a pair of huge pit craters left after volcanic eruptions thousands (or millions?) of years ago and then visited a place where the tortoises move through and feed. We saw at least a dozen of them. My sisters know they don't call me Lucky for nothing!
We concluded our day after walking into two lava tubes, having some wonderful Ecuadorian coffee and taking the pangas back to the ship. We'll sleep well tonight.
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