6 Santa Cruz Island is Superb Turtle Mating and Charles Darwin Institute Dec 12 2019 Santa Cruz island was superb and quite a different day from the rest so far. There are many boats in the harbor of Puerto Ayora which is a town of 24,000.
We drove to the highlands to visit El Chato Ranch, which is privately owned ecological ranch where the giant tortoises roam freely. Did you know that the males can be four times larger than the females and grow to be five hundred pounds!
The giant tortoises were feeling very amorous and we saw several couples mating. One male seemed to be in line for a turn but the first male stuck up its neck and the second male backed away from the female.
We went in the lava tunnels, El Mirador and Los Gemelos (the twins), a pair of massive craters. I liked walking inside the dark tunnels.
After lunch on our yacht, we went to the Charles Darwin Research Center, where we saw the taxidermied Lonesome George whose death marked the extinction of his species of tortoise from Pinta Island. We also met Diego, the tortoise who was brought over from San Diego and now has nearly 1000 descendants and brought his species back from the brink of extinction.
During our free time in town, I bought a silver necklace and earrings in the shape of turtles. We walked back to the dock and ate ice cream.
Back on board, we had drinks on the sun deck at sunset and enjoyed another marvelous multi-course meal with our friends and fantastic guides.
Galapagos Islands videos:
More about Ecoventura:
Filmed by Lisa Niver on Canon SX 530 HS, #LGV40ThinQ, #LGG8 and AKASO 4K
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Safe Travels!
Lisa Niver
We Said Go Travel LLC
January 2020
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