Big Turtles !!!!!!

Santa Cruz, Turtle Time:

We arrived a little before 0600 and dropped anchor at Santa Cruz. A Brown Pelican assisted in the lowering of the zodiacs as the sun made a nice sunrise. 

Today we are off to see turtles. 

After breakfast we are shuttled off to shore where we board busses with take us to the Charles Darwin Research Station. The first thing that is striking to us the lushness of this island, it is in stark contrast to the dryness of the other islands. This research station is and has been responsible for the classifying and repopulating the tortoises here in the Galapagos. There are several sub species, each one specific to each separate island, and it is here they hatched and raised in a nursery and then are released on the appropriate island. 

After this visit we are off to a coffee/ sugar cane farm. Several us chose to bicycle to the coffee plantation and we we dropped off about 3 plus miles out. The road was up hill all the way and it was a bit hot and humid. Yet it felt good to get the blood moving. 

Arriving at the coffee plantation we were given a glass of sugar cane juice with a squeeze of orange. Being very hot and sweaty it was rather nice. Then we were shown how coffee was harvested and roasted, how sugar cane is processed into juice and molasses as well as a local moonshine.  We were treated to a local cheese with a drizzle the sugar cane molasses, coffee beans were served with small cubes of brown sugar (this was my favorite).  There was a working still on property and we were given many samples, my best description of sugar cane moonshine is something like Anise. 

I noticed there were a couple of Cuban Cedar trees being milled on the property and I asked Juan Carlos if I could get a piece of this wood and if it would be ok to take home. He did arrange to get me a piece of this wood had it cleaned and milled into two nice pieces. I will be making gifts to send back to them . 

From there we we taken high into the highlands to a nice restaurant where we had a very nice roasted chicken. 

After lunch we were back on the bus and taken to an area where the tortoises are wild and free roaming. The Galapagos Giant Tortoises are very emblematic of the Galapagos. Sailors harvested those for fresh meat as they can live a long time without food or water, hence they were perfect for sailing ships of the time.  My best guess is we observed about 40 tortoises in total. They were migrating, slowly - well how else, and were joy to observe. The size is amazing and to think many we saw were over 100 years old. Here we had to wear knee high rubber boots to protect us from the fire ants. 

Also on this property there were a couple of lava tubes where we were able to walk in one. 

Soon it was time to return to our busses and we were taken back to town. Here we could choose to shop and visit Santa Cruz or return to the boat. Enough of the rubber tomahawk shops for us so we went back to the ship to clean up and get some laundry done. 

DInner, then a local musical group with dancers, excellent and very entertaining.