Galapagos Day Four & Five

DAY FOUR SANTA CRUZ ISLAND

Our last full day on the ship and we were off again about 8:00 for a very rocky ride in the pangas to Santa Cruz island and the city of Puerto Ayora where we visited the Charles Darwin research centre. The panga ride was really something else with waves of about 4 to 5 ft crashing over the boat. After the ride in no one was looking forward to the ride back to the ship!!!!

We hoped a bus that took us the short distance to the research centre. Here we spent time with Paul as he took us around explaining the centre to us. Here we got our first glimpse of the giant tortoise, these are in captivity to help preserve the endangered creatures. We were able to get up close and personal with some of them which was kind of neat. The eggs are all retrieved from all the tortoise in captivity plus all they find in the wild and incubated until they hatched. Once hatched there are kept in special holding pens for 5 years because if they were left to fend for themselves the rats would kill them. The rat, being an introduced species, has played havoc on the tortoise. At five years they are still pretty small are reintroduced into the field as they are able to fend for themselves at that point in their lives.

Once Paul had explained the centre to us we were left on our own to explore the centre and the centre of town until 11:30 when the pangas would pick us back up.

The ride back to the ship was rougher then on the trip out, the boat was up and down with water splashing over the bow. We were glad we were sitting in the back of the panga. You have to see to believe how we exit and enter the ship from the pangas in rough water, it is very precarious!!!
Back into time for a quick briefing on tomorrow and lunch again followed by a few hours of free time. At 3:00 we had to board the pangas one more time for another ride back to town, this time not so bad, where we would board buses for a 45 minute ride to the highlands and the giant tortoise in the wild. We were very lucky it was a cloudy day which meant the tortoise where more mobile. These tortoise are huge, I guess that is why they are called giant. Paul had never seen so many tortoises in one place and he has been coming here for years. We were most certainly lucky.

Following our visit to the tortoise we drove a few miles to a lava tunnel where we were able to walk inside it as it was massive. It was hard to believe that at one time hot flowing lava found it’s way through the tunnel. Lava tubes can be found all over the islands.

Our trip back to the pangas was uneventful but it was amazing to see all the flowers growing along the side of the road, I wish I could have taken a picture but we were driving too fast.
The sea was high again when we headed back to the ship, we are glad we only have one more trip to take tomorrow back to Baltra Island to head for the plane.

DAY FIVE

Wake up was at 6:15 and breakfast at 6:30 as some of those on board decided to take one last trip to shore for a swim. We decided to stay on board for a bit of a rest. Next stop the airport and then Guayquil for a tour this afternoon. Guayquil is pronounced “Wy a kill”