Day 14: Puerto Ayora, Santa Cruz Island (Galápagos)
Most people live on this island if they live in the Galápagos. This is the home of the National Park Service as well as the Charles Darwin Research Station. They keep young tortoise hatchlings for 4-5 years of the 10 remaining species until their shells are thick and hard enough to withstand most attacks and then methodically release them appropriately. Some live over 100 years and some still die for various reasons including as prey.
We bused up to the highlands to see wild giant tortoises on some property the family shares with the Charles Darwin Research Station. The tortoises roam across many properties freely navigating from the beach (laying eggs) to the highlands (hanging out most of the time). They had us all put on mud boots which I was quite thankful for once we started walking. The turtles just sit in a lot in mud puddles to regulate temperature. The boots got tons of mud and poop all over them. There were so many turtles to look at and then after our walk we got to climb out of the boots and leave them to be cleaned. Our shoes were perfectly clean.
We bused back into town to visit the Charles Darwin Research Station. They raise tortoises from each island for about 5 years and release them when their survival rate will be extremely high. The younger ones shells are not tough enough to withstand some predators and so many were taken from the islands before it became a national park that they are trying to get species per island back up to levels before humans intervened. Humans also brought non-native things like goats, rats, and more that altered things considerably. They've tried to eliminate as much as possible.
We stayed in town for a couple of hours for a long lunch that had WiFi. It was actually kind of nice to be free from outside communication while touring the Galápagos for a week. This helped everyone mingle more after activities rather than stare at screens in silence.
I originally wanted to be on the smallest tour boat here which is typically 16 guests. There are pros and cons to that over what we got (41 guests on boat that maxes at 48) or the 100 person boats.
The 16 guest boats can anchor closer to things to get to shore landings and snorkeling stuff spending less time in zodiac unless that is the activity for morning or afternoon. You get to know everyone really well on those boats. One thing I didn't realize is that the certified naturalists that must accompany everyone in the national park areas can deal with at most 16 people. This is why those are the common size. You only need one naturalist on board. Hopefully they're really good because you're only going to get their perspective. We have 4 of them on our boat - it could get away with 3 but we go in max groups of 12 on our zodiacs. We get different perspectives from each of them and it's been interesting learning from them all. I like the size we ended up with not feeling too crowded as 100 would likely make me anxious waiting in line for every zodiac excursion.
We bused up to the highlands to see wild giant tortoises on some property the family shares with the Charles Darwin Research Station. The tortoises roam across many properties freely navigating from the beach (laying eggs) to the highlands (hanging out most of the time). They had us all put on mud boots which I was quite thankful for once we started walking. The turtles just sit in a lot in mud puddles to regulate temperature. The boots got tons of mud and poop all over them. There were so many turtles to look at and then after our walk we got to climb out of the boots and leave them to be cleaned. Our shoes were perfectly clean.
We bused back into town to visit the Charles Darwin Research Station. They raise tortoises from each island for about 5 years and release them when their survival rate will be extremely high. The younger ones shells are not tough enough to withstand some predators and so many were taken from the islands before it became a national park that they are trying to get species per island back up to levels before humans intervened. Humans also brought non-native things like goats, rats, and more that altered things considerably. They've tried to eliminate as much as possible.
We stayed in town for a couple of hours for a long lunch that had WiFi. It was actually kind of nice to be free from outside communication while touring the Galápagos for a week. This helped everyone mingle more after activities rather than stare at screens in silence.
I originally wanted to be on the smallest tour boat here which is typically 16 guests. There are pros and cons to that over what we got (41 guests on boat that maxes at 48) or the 100 person boats.
The 16 guest boats can anchor closer to things to get to shore landings and snorkeling stuff spending less time in zodiac unless that is the activity for morning or afternoon. You get to know everyone really well on those boats. One thing I didn't realize is that the certified naturalists that must accompany everyone in the national park areas can deal with at most 16 people. This is why those are the common size. You only need one naturalist on board. Hopefully they're really good because you're only going to get their perspective. We have 4 of them on our boat - it could get away with 3 but we go in max groups of 12 on our zodiacs. We get different perspectives from each of them and it's been interesting learning from them all. I like the size we ended up with not feeling too crowded as 100 would likely make me anxious waiting in line for every zodiac excursion.