Day 81 - 84 Galapagos - Santa Cruz & Floreana Islands

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After an amazing 6 days on the little red boat Encantada, and 80 days on the road since I left Sydney, it is now time to slow down, take stock and have a rest, before the final journey home.

So here I was, in Puerto Ayora, the major town in the Galapagos, on Santa Cruz Island, and I  was planning to explore the surrounding islands in a leisurely pace over the next few days.

Puerto Ayora seems to be the major transport hubs of the archipelago, it has ferries to a few of the majors islands, Floeana, San Cristobal and Isabella, and I intended to use these to explore.

Puerto Ayora

Marina Iguanas running around the waterfront

At the centre of Santa Cruz Island, Val, Fabien ( my French fellow travelers on Encantada ) and I shared a taxi to explore a couple of sink holes.  The taxi driver was very trusting, he left us at the location, without any payments, went back to town and returned a few hours later at the appointed time, to pick us up.

a Los Gemelos small sink hole

Los Gemelos big sink hole

Rain Forests surrounding Los Gemelos

There are also a few interesting sights walking along the water front, but none more interesting than the sea lions and pelicans hanging around the fishermen's washing table for a feed, trying to pop their heads behind the fishermen, to pinch a piece of fish.

The Darwin Research Station and Lonesome George are possibly the most famous attractions near Puerto Ayora ( within walking distance ), but to be honest, it is somewhat run down, and for the average tourists, only ready attractions are some tortoises and colourful land iguanas in a kept environment.  Unfortunately, the famous Lonesome George, possibly 100+ years old, the last member of the Pinta Island Tortoises, also passed away two years ago.

A bright coloured land iguana

The old place for Lonesome George.

Here is the story behind Lonesome George; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lonesome_George and the unsuccessful attempt to find a mate for him.  He was the last member of a subspecies of Galapagos Tortoises on the Pinta Island.

The few days at Puerto Ayora was primarily for resting, and there is a long stretch of beaches on the western side, reachable for a 30 minutes walk, the white sands of Tortuga Bay. 

And the many beautiful opuntia cactus trees along the walk to Tortuga Bay beaches.

After successfully withdrawing some greenbacks from the ATM, I ran into a student parade on the streets of Puerto Ayora.  My first reaction was, gosh, not another political protest and possibly locking up the township for the next few days.......

Then the joyful nature of the group, laid my worries aside, it was a local school festival of some sort.  Now it is time to walk down to the street, and get some food........there it was, a street only a short walk from the waterfront, filled with food stalls after sundown...

Offering fresh seafoods at very reasonable prices among other local cuisines

A visit to the Galapagos wouldn't be complete, without learning more of the  of the recent documentary Galapagos Affair; Satan came to Eden, based on the real but intrigue life stories of the few early eccentric European inhabitants on Floreana Island.

So it was a matter of braving a 2 hour 60Km boat trip, but not before passing through the strict quarantine checks at the piers on both sides of the trip.

Quarantine check-ponts at the pier for all inter-island trips. The queue can be long if left to the last minute.

After arriving at Floreana, we were met with a few lazying iguanas and sea lions in front of its sleepy fishing village. The small settlement supplement their livelihoods with a truck tour of the island, complete with a 3 course lunch, for the daily boat load of visitors.

The tour started in a bit of chaos.  After boarding the truck, then we were told to alight, to walk to the beach for snorkeling first, because the truck had some mechanical issues.  But as soon as we were at the beach, the truck reappeared, apparently all fixed....all in a space of less then 15 minutes !!

After a 30 minutes trip up the mountains of Floreana on the truck, we then walked through a small rain forest, to ostensibly the original settlement of the characters featured in the documentary, Galapagos Affair; Satan came to Eden.

And here it is, the life saving and sometime, point of conflict during water droughts on the island back then, the only fresh water spring on the island, 

Over the next couple of hours, we were shown the various sheltering and hiding places for buccaneers on this island dating back to the early Spanish presence since 300+ years ago.

Possibly an imitation of the stone heads on Easter Island

Aside from the early few European inhabitants in Galapagos Affair; Satan came to Eden, the island's present settlers only arrived about 40 years ago.  In fact most of the settlements in the Galapagos really only flourish after it was declared a National Park, when tourists started to arrive in the late 1960s.

There is this Post Office Box at Post Office Bay which we did not get to, it used to be an informal postal "service" for these remote islands along the seafarer routes, where mails can be dropped and collected as when boats arrived and left.  Read here.

We also visited a semi-abandoned Tortoise breeding centre. It was setup in an attempt to resurrect an extinct subspecies by cross breeding two different subspecies, but failed.  No off-springs were ever produced.  Now, the tortoises are left in an enclosed ground, for them to see out their years.

This unfortunate one was caught on top of a stone, unmovable. Saved by our guide.

After lunch was served at the local village, we tried to do some snorkeling at the black sand beach by the pier, but the condition was poor, not much can be seen except a couple of curios marine iguanas.

Next Post:  Galapagos - San Cristobal Island

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