Wednesday 1.10.14 – San Cristobal Island, Puerto Baquerizo Morena, Cerro Colorado Tortoise Breeding

Bit queasy last night, managed to stay up till about 9.30. Slept soundly, pretty much till 6.45. Breaky was later this morning at 8.00. We departed the ship at 8.30 for San Cristobal, where we are bussing around, firstly to the Interpretation Centre where we learnt lots about the history of Galapagos including its geology, the wildlife and the human history of Galapagos.

The long and short of it is, that it is amazing that any of the endemic flora and fauna survived the ravages of man. The slaughter of tortoises, fish, sharks, etc was indescribable, and man’s misuse of the land and introduction of various plant and animal species have decimated the natural environment. The Galapagos Parque people are doing much to try and support the recovery.

Following this we had an hours free time in the town Puerto Baquerizo Moreno, the capital of the Galapagos, bought a couple of t-shirts and a sprite.

There are Sea Lions lazing about around the Port, on the ships in the harbour, on kids slides, on the steps, rocks, piers and even on the park benches.

This area was established by an Ecuadorian bloke who started growing sugar cane on the island, using basically slave labour of prisoners to do the work, he was a tyrant, mistreating his workers, he paid them in his own currency which was only good to use in his own stores. In the end he was murdered by his workers.

Sleeping soundly in the kids slide. Very sure it's
no longer used, as quite an odour around the area.

Lazing around on the steps to the jetty. Mother
and pup.

Cute Sea Lion pup, with elder.

All that swimming...pooped!

They look so comfortable and in the land of
sweet dreams.

Sea Lions, all over this boat in the harbour. Many
of the boats were netted, or had barbed wire to deter
the Sea Lions.

There were at least 9 on board.

After our free time, it was back to the ship for lunch and some free time, before repeating the trip to the town, onto buses and up over the highlands of San Cristobal. The Highland areas are much more green and lush, there were clouds sitting on the top of the island, quite cool to drive through, trees dripping with moss etc, lots of agriculture happening up there – bananas, avocadoes, oranges that we could see. We went up over the highlands and down to the other side of San Cristobal to Cerro Colorado for a visit to another Tortoise breeding program. Each Island has a different variety of Tortoise, these guys were Saddleback Tortoises. Despite them being in captivity it was worth the 40 minute trip on a pretty rough bus, with little suspension. We were lucky to visit on one of the 3 feeding days each week. We saw the smallest Tortoises only a few months old and probably 10 -15cm long, through to the 2 and 5 year olds, who were bigger again, we saw a female laying eggs and we saw the big buggers feeding, they were huge. It was amazing to watch and listen to them crunch through the plant material they were fed, there was even a bit of a stoush between a few of them.

There were also some Chatham Mockingbirds that allowed us very close, they had a lovely birdsong.

The Tortoise breeding station.

Crunching in to their feed.

A mockingbird, this guy let us get really, really
close.

Chatham Mockingbird.

A group of really big Saddleback Tortoises
chomping into their feed.

A bit of a 'to do' over food. When they lifted up
that huge shell, they were quite tall with really
long necks.

Their legs must be really strong, they even moved
quite quickly when having a go at each other.

Lichen made brilliant patterns all over the
Galapagos.

Female laying eggs. Looks like hard work.

Rafa explaining something.

Then back to town for 15 minutes free time, before heading back to the ship.

The clouds in the highlands, and moss on the trees.

The humans make very nice resting places for the
Sea Lions.

Us with the Tortoises.

We were moored in the bay off Puerto Baquerizo Morena, a sparkling blue – green bay. The shoreline is black lava rock and white sandy beach.

Same routine for the night, dinner, briefing and bed.