First days on the islands

Tuesday, November 23

From Quito we flew to Baltra, an uninhabited island in the Galapagos.  Baltra had a US military base during World War II and now it has become the airport hub for all of the islands.  From there, we took a bus to a ferry and over to the island of Santa Cruz.  This side of the island is desert.  Then we took a bus across the island to the town Puerto Ayaora where we are staying.  Once we got up into the highlands (about 300 ft above sea level) the island was much more lush.  From the bus, we saw our first giant tortoises!  One of them was walking up the road.  We spent the afternoon snorkeling in deep (and very cold) water at the island of Loberia.  Lots of large fish and a seal were swimming around with us.  One large parrot fish that I was watching pooped right in front of me!  It was a big fish so you can guess the rest.  From there we went to La Garieta to see the marine iguanas.  At first I thought there weren’t very many there, but once I really looked, I found them everywhere.  They were sunning themselves on the rocks.  The little ones pile up on top of each other.

 Wednesday, November 24, 2010

The Charles Darwin Research Center was established to research the plants and animals on the islands and help the Ecuadorian government make decisions on how best to take care of the islands.  We saw all kinds of giant tortoises, including Lonesome George, a tortoise that was found alone on Santa Cruz island.  He is the only of one his species known to exist.   We also saw the baby tortoises in the hatchery.  They are so cute!  If I had better internet, I’d post a video of them eating.  We also saw land iguanas and more marine iguanas.  It was a great day of learning about the islands’ inhabitants and about the environmental issues facing the islands.