Day 51: Arriving onto Santa Cruz – Galapagos Islands!

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We woke up and caught our airport transfer at 6.45am. We grabbed some breakie at the airport, and excitedly waited for our 9.10am to the Galapagos.

It was a beautiful clear day as we flew in over the archipelago. I could see a number of small islands and rocks sticking up out of the ocean. We landed onto Baltra Island, paid our $100ea entrance fee into the national park and hoped that someone would be on the other side from Grey Line to pick us up. Thankfully there was a lady on the other side holding up a sign for us. She informed us that we would have to wait around until 12 o'clock as we had to wait for another couple to arrive on a later flight. It was a bit annoying as we had purposely taken the earlier flight so we could do more stuff on our first day. It was right on 11am so we took it on the chin, its was only an hour anyway.

So we waited at the airport for the next flight and, after waiting for everybody on this flight to clear immigration and walk out, our guide was still standing there with the sign. Apparently the couple we were waiting for didn't turn up!! It was about 1pm by this point so we were quite annoyed as we hadn't had lunch either.

We jumped onto a bus that took us the short distance across Baltra Island to the boat dock. Baltra is quite a barren island, with more cacti than anything else. It only took us 15mins to get to the other side where we boarded a little boat that took us across to Santa Cruz Island. It was only a 5min boat ride but on the ride across we saw blue footed boobies (a native bird) diving into the water trying to catch fish. It is the most amusing scene, watching these birds glide above the water and as soon as a fish catches their eye, they accelerate towards the water like a missile and kamikaze into it hoping it to stun their prey. I'll hopefully capture them in the moment over the next couple of days.

We arrived onto Santa Cruz and jumped on a mini-bus with 3 Puerto Rican ladies. Our guide informed us of the afternoon's activities and off we went.

Our first stop was Rancho Primicias in the Santa Cruz Highlands. It didn't take long for us to find exactly what we were there for! There were 2 tortoises just sun-baking in this little lagoon. One was a male which was clearly much bigger than the female. He just sat their in the water minding his own business whilst the female was a bit more inquisitive. Our guide informed us that these native tortoises live in the highlands all their lives. The particular park we were in is their natural habitat and the animals are completely wild. The only time they venture away from this area is when the female makes the journey down to the ocean to lay her eggs. We got as close as we dared to these massive creatures, and at one point whilst Rach was standing on a rock, the inquisitive female crept up to her and wandered right by. The tortoise then found a guava fruit sitting on the ground and decided it was a good time to grab a snack.

We left these 2 and kept wandering through the park. The further we went, the more tortoises we saw, including a massive male just sun-baking in the sun. We crept behind him and got our photo of the day. Our guide told us that given the size of this bloke, he would be about 100 years old. These creatures can live for about 150 years, and going by the pace at which they travel, they are never in a hurry anyway.

We came across another female just by the lagoon. This particular one was quite young, probably a teenager. It was such a cool experience and they didn't seem to mind us wandering through their neighbourhood. If we accidentally scared them, their little heads would pop inside their shell and wait for the danger to pass before going about their business.

We made it back to the visitor centre, all pumped up after our first experience on Galapagos. We ordered some lunch which unfortunately was not the greatest experience, as our toasted ham and cheese sandwich had a bit of mold on the bread! After lunch, we found some empty tortoise shells that they had on display. They even had one that you could hop down side and so, being the big kid that she is, Rach proceeded to wiggle her way down into the tortoise shell!!

After lunch, we piled back into the mini-bus for the short drive to the lava tunnels. The name sounds more exciting than it actually was. We took a short walk to a viewing point where a lava eruption thousands of years ago had carved out a tunnel underneath the earth. It just looked like a cave however we captured the moment all the same. As we were listening to our guide explain the surroundings, a mockingbird joined us and perched on the tree just by us. The guide was a lot more excited about the bird after that as they are relatively rare to see!

We spent about 15mins at the tunnel before heading to Puerto Ayora, the town at which we would be staying over the course of our tour. It was cool to see how the landscape changed across the island, starting out on barren land with a few cacti growing to dense vegetation up in the highlands. The island is quite sparse, with only a couple of little villages dotted across the place. We arrived into Puerto Ayora and took a visit to the Charles Darwin Conservation Centre. This place is used as a research centre and keeps a number a tortoises and land iguanas in captivity. We walked through and saw different pens were they were breeding different types of tortoises. Each island has its own native species and therefore care must be taken to not only conserve the species, but not get them muddled up! We looked in each pen and saw heaps and heaps of baby tortoises, they just looked so cute that I wanted to take one home. The babies would stay in their pens until about the age of 2 when they move up to kindergarten and live in a larger pen. After 4 years, they are big enough to protect themselves against predators (mainly rats and dogs) and they are released back into the wild on their respective islands.

We came across an enclosure that was made famous by Lonesome George, the last remaining Pinto Tortoise in existence. It is a bit of a sad story however George was found on Pinto Island back in the 1970's. He was brought to the Darwin Centre for protection and an endless search commenced for another one of his species, particularly a female. After years and years of searching the island, no female was ever located. The scientists then placed 2 females from a different island that was a similar genetic match to Lonesome George. After years of trying, the females never conceived and in June last year, Lonesome George died of natural causes, aged 119, and his species has become extinct.

We wandered on and came across the land iguana enclosure. Here, there were 3 males kept in captivity however had to be kept separated as they are quite aggressive, territorial creatures. These lizards are quite large, and a really sandy type colour. Hopefully we'll get to see these in the wild over the next few days.

We finished our tour with another enclosure that were filled with different types of male tortoises. These guys were getting a bit randy given its almost mating season and in the absence of any female tortoises, one big guy got a little confused and mounted a poor helpless tortoise.

We wandered back to the bus where we learnt the difference between a turtle and a tortoise. A turtle is a marine animal and a tortoise is land-based (for those wondering!).

We got dropped off at our hotel which is amusingly called the Red Booby Hotel. From here we had the rest of the day to ourselves so we took off to explore the little town of Puerto Ayora. Its such a cute little place filled with restaurants and souvenir shops. We got dinner at Il Giaordina and I had the lobster ravioli and Rach went the chicken wrapped in prosciutto. We were given a voucher as part of our tour for this place to get a free dessert so we kept enough room for ice-cream as well!!

We spent the evening walking around the town, looking in the souvenir shops. Rach and I have decided that we'll buy a little figurine for each different animal that we see. So far, we have the blue-footed booby and the tortoise...here's hoping we add to our collection over the next few days!!

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Photos

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sitting round waiting at the airport

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the small gap between baltra and santa cruz

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blue footed booby diving for fish

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giant tortoises in the wild

Comments

[Mum]

Love the photos! Hard to believe that they are actually real! Looking brown and skinny Rach! x