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Galapagos Islands Vacation !

In August we were able to travel to the Galapagos Islands for a once in a lifetime adventure. We traveled with Natural Habitat Adventures on their Eastern itinerary on board the Nemo III catamaran luxury sailboat. Each day we traveled to a differnt Galapagos island where we hiked, snorkled and kayaked amongst the incredible wildlife where we learned about the ecosystem and animals from our incredible guides. Along the way we made new friends and enjoyed the spending time with them, the guides and the crew of the Nemo III.

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Day 6 - More Santa Cruz and Santa Fe Island

We awoke in our tree house and enjoyed a nice breakfast before participating in a planting aiming to restore natural fauna to the area. After that we traveled to the Charles Darwin Research Center in Santa Cruz where scientists amon other things are working on restoring the Giant Tortoise population.

After the Research Center tour and some shopping and lunch in downtown Santa Cruz, we dparted for the Santa Fe Island where we snorkled, followed by a hike and capped off the afternoon with a short kayak.
We all took part in planting an endemic speicies of tree in order to return this area of the Santa Cruz Highlands to its original native state.

A Saddleback variety of Giant Tortoise at the Darwin research center. The 'notch' in the shell was an adaptation that allowed longer necks to evolve to eat food from higher tree branches.

Baby Giant Tortoises being raised at the Darwin Research Center.

Mural of "Lonsome George", a Giant Tortoise who was the last known surving tortoise from Pinta and his longtime caretaker Fausto Llerena, a park ranger who was on the expedition that discovered Goerge. "Lonesome George" passed away unexepectedly, though he was over 100 years old, his subspecies was know to live to almost 200 years of age.

 

Next >> Day 7 - Bartolome

 

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