It’s been a great week so far!
Today, early in the morning, we all woke up with the view of the largest of the Galapagos towns known as Puerto Ayora on the horizon. Right after breakfast we began our day, which is dedicated in totality to the Galápagos giant tortoises.
After disembarking at the Galapagos National Park dock and taking a short walk, we arrived at the Tortoise Breeding Center. We admired the many juvenile tortoises that, as adults, will repopulate the islands with their descendants. We saw a famous tortoise individual named Diego here. This tortoise lived in the San Diego Zoo for many decades, but was eventually brought back to the Galapagos with the mission to save his fading race. He successfully became the prolific father of hundreds of new tortoises.
This island is the base for the two main institutions that work as partners in the preservation of this enchanted archipelago. The Galapagos National Park Service, which is an Ecuadorian governmental organization, and the world-renowned Charles Darwin Research Station both were established coincidentally in 1959. The institutions work together to collect, incubate, reproduce, repatriate, and ultimately save from extinction some of the vanishing Galapagos giant tortoise subspecies.
The fisherman’s wharf is one of the most interesting places to visit here. Today a couple of Galapagos sea lions and some brown pelicans were hanging around the fishermen, who were busy cutting up their fish, with the hope of winning a morsel.
After walking around town we soon headed to the highlands, where all the vegetation was green since we had just arrived in the humid zone. After lunch all of our guests who had high hopes to see the giant reptiles of the Galapagos in the wilderness went to “El Chato.” There we had a great time photographing and observing several gentle giants that were all over the place.
Once on the ship, we had local musicians coming to perform endemic music, together with colorful outfits, and great rhythm.
