Isla Santa Cruz
Wednesday 25 May – We arrived in Academy Bay, Puerto Ayora around 4pm and were keen to get into town to see what we could do in the short time we are here.
First impressions weren’t great as we got off the water taxi at the dock, it didn’t feel as laid back as San Cristóbal had, being the largest town in Galápagos and a lot more commercial. We booked ourselves a tour to go and see the giant tortoises and lava tunnels and then Geoff spied a nice restaurant overlooking the water so we zipped out on another water taxi. What a find, the Isla Grill was absolutely gorgeous, sitting on the waterside, watching the sharks swimming below us and having the most delicious dinner – a great evening!
Thursday 26 May – Off on our Highlands Tour. First stop was Los Gemelos to see two giant craters opposite each other on both sides of the road leading to Baltra which are a product of the sinking earth after volcanic eruptions. We walked part way round - health and safety in NZ would have had a field day here, no fences and huge deep craters!
Second stop, and what we really came for, was the visit to Rancho Primicias, Reserva el Chato, a protected area dedicated to the preservation and promotion of the endemic turtle species, Chelonoidis Porter, the giant turtle from Santa Cruz. Our tour guide Luis, was very knowledgeable, plenty of information including a few interesting facts – the ranch has been open for 70 years, and some of the tortoises are older than that, they can live to 200 years (a bit boring when all they do is eat and slowly walk around all day!) it’s hard to tell their age but you can get a good idea by how many rings they have on their shells, the males are bigger than the females and have bigger tails (funny that!), they have no ears so operate by the vibrations they feel, they have no real digestion system so what they eat comes straight back out – and this is where the problem lies….they are eating so much guava fruit that the seeds are coming straight out the other end and they germinating into too many guava trees which are taking over from the other endemic plants such as scalesia and guayabillo.
We followed this with a tour of the lava tunnels which were formed as the outer skin of molten lava solidified and the liquid magma inside continued flowing, leaving behind a series of empty tubes which we were able to walk through, about 250 metres underground. Santa Cruz island is apparently riddled with underground passages. Luckily the tunnels had some electric lighting which helped as the floor is rubble and rock, except for the final tunnel that had no lighting, so we had to use the torches on our phones. Not quite sure what the tour guides did before iphones though!
After the tour I found the prettier side of Santa Cruz, so spent the afternoon wandering around, admiring the lizards snoozing in the sunshine and the beautifully coloured crabs scarpering across the lava walls on the bay. And of course, a bit of retail therapy – more presents for my grandchildren!
