Galapagos: Santa Cruz

Tuesday, December 1st- Thursday, December 3rd
Santa Cruz, Galapagos Islands

 
After arriving at the airport, you need to take a short bus ride to the ferry where you cross a small channel and then hop on another bus for a 30 minute transport to the town of Puerta Ayora. 


Some sights walking around town the first day.

Our first real sighting.  We quickly learned this is a common thing!

Hanging out on the benches along the boardwalk.

Anchored boats also seem to be a great resting place!

A campaign to stop the throwing of cigarette butts on the beaches.  These duds are made from those cigarette butts collected around the beaches and docks.

The Charles Darwin Research Center.  There was very little information for the public here which I was surprised about.  There seems to be future plans for this.  We did get to see a few endangered iguanas and turtles.

Brad and Charles Darwin

This iguana was near extinction after WWII when the island was used as a military base.  They have since worked to breed and work to get them off the endangered animal list.

Iguanas along the road...



Today I swam with sea turtles and lots of different fish! In the morning, we rented snorkels and flippers for all of us for the day. We first went to the Darwin Research Center and looked around there for a little bit.  Then we went to a little beach and went snorkeling for a couple of hours. In that spot we only saw fish but we saw a bunch of different kinds and they were all very cool. The biggest one we saw there was probably 1.5 feet. It was orange with blue around the edges. There were lots of little black fish with yellow lips and blue eyes. They we're hiding all in the rocks.

At about 4:45, we left to go to another place to snorkel. To get there, we had to take a water taxi/boat across the bay where we had to walk 5 minutes to get to a beach. The beach is called Las Grietas and it is good for snorkeling, so that is what we did. We snorkeled for only about 40 min, but we went out really far. This is where we saw a few sea turtles. When we saw one, I would go and swim really fast behind it and then go under water and up to it's back to where I would give it a back massage. I think that the turtles liked my back massages because I don't think anyone had massaged their shells for a long time. Today was my first day snorkeling and it was fun! I hope I see stingrays next time!

By Asa

Marine iguanas you see swimming in the water.

 Morning coffee at the apartment.