Galapagos: Santa Cruz (Part 2 of 2)

After today's first round of activities, our guides each took a group to El Trapiche, a working farm in the highlands of Santa Cruz island. The highest elevation of Santa Cruz is 2,835 ft or 865 meters.

This device crushes sugar cane and collects the juice.

Following the sugar cane theme, instead of chronological order of our visit, here is where the sugar cane is boiled down, just as with maple syrup.

Some of it ends up as yummy brown sugar, and some is fermented into "white lightning."

It's potent stuff, as the ignition test -- tossing a glassful onto a fire -- proves.

Another major product of the farm is coffee. After picking, the beans are separated from the berries surrounding them.

The beans are then pounded, and the husks discarded by threshing.

Then they are roasted.

One delicacy is a pinch of the brown cane sugar combined with a roasted bean, popped into the mouth.

El Trapiche also grows bananas -- not the mass produced Cavendish strain, either, but tasty bananas.

And there are free-range chickens. And chicks.

We all came together again for lunch at the Narwhal, also located in the highlands.

A barn owl was taking his daylight siesta above the bar.

Our next stop was the El Chato ranch, part of an ecological reserve. Visitors can hike in from a nearby village, but our buses delivered us there.

The tortoises are free to come and go, through the park and through private land, along migratory routes that can take them to the sea and back.

We wandered through the open areas of the reserve. Our groups quickly dispersed through the acreage.

Some tortoises hang out eating the foliage. Some love the mud.

Deep into the mud.

But these awkward looking creatures, who walk with their front feet turned almost 90° inward, can, when motivated, lurch up and turn on the afterburner. This video clip is five smaller clips stitched together from one session where Joan and I were the only ones observing this particular tortoise.


The opportunity came to walk through a short lava tube with one of the guides, in our case, Vanessa. First, we negotiated a wooden staircase down into the tube.

At the bottom it was an easy, flat walk. Darkness and, for me, not bumping my head were the only issues.

Vanessa gave us some explanations of the tube's geological origins and its discovery.

Then we climbed back up into the light.

There was time for more tortoise-watching. Sometimes they watched back, briefly because we weren't that interesting.

Back at the pavilion we could rest our feet, perhaps get a drink. Our friend Rick took this shot of Joan and me.

The pavilion had some exhibits, including a tortoise shell, in its two halves, that visitors could check out, as Rick is doing here.

After being driven down to the docks, but before boarding our zodiac, we asked permission to photograph Miguel Andagana, the cigarette man we had first met in the morning.

Then we were back aboard the Islander as the sun grew lower.

And lower.

We had a great dinner with Ros and Rick,

and were treated to a performance by musicians and dancers of EcoArt, engaged in a "rescue work" of traditional Andean culture. (Some of these photos are without flash, which I find intrusive.)

 The musicians were in the background, of course. The gentleman with the guitar is one of the founders.

 Galapagos theme skirts!

Towards the end the performers pulled members from the audience, including Joan, to the stage.

It made for a big celebration! Having two left feet, I didn't mind being left out. Perhaps it showed.

Tomorrow we'll visit South Plaza, a small islet off Santa Cruz, and Santa Fe island.

Galapagos: Santa Cruz (Part 1 of 2)

In a complete change of activities today, we visited Santa Cruz, the second largest island in the Galapagos with between 12,000 and 20,000 inhabitants, depending on the source. It was a dry landing at Puerto Ayora -- the zodiacs coasted up to the floating docks.

There was a town map at the docks,

but our first destinations were the Charles Darwin Research Station and the associated Tortoise Breeding Station run by the Galapagos National Park Service. Buses would take us through town, and then there was a half-mile walk. We soon encountered Charles Darwin.

The walk was not without its perils: the treacherous leaves and sweet-tasting fruit of the manzanillo (also known as manchineel).

This specimen was large and leaned into the roadway.

Joan made sure that our pigs of the trip, Dimples and Knuckles, had their visit recorded. 

Various experimental plots lined the walkways.

In this photo there's a cactus "nursery" device. The plate funnels rainwater to the tender seedling, and the cone protects it against sun, wind, and some pests. We'll see a different version of this device in use on tomorrow morning's hike.

Charles was waiting for us at the end of the road.

Then it was time to mosey over to the Tortoise Rearing and Breeding Center. Eleven of the original 12-15 subspecies of Galapagos tortoise still survive, and it's possible that the Pinta tortoise, made famous by Lonesome George, now deceased, might be re-bred from recently discovered hybrids with Pinta DNA.

Lizards enjoyed the compounds and the rock walls. Some kept an eye on us.

But we were here for the tortoises.

The initial tortoise residences tempted us to linger.

What stoic faces they present.

There were further corrals to visit. Note the raised carapace on this (sub)species of tortoise -- it allows him to raise his head higher, to reach cactus blossoms and other fruits. It doesn't come into play here.

The establishment of the center preceded funding of serious conservation efforts, so still today, the tortoises are crowded much closer to each other than they would be in the wild.

There is also an exhibit building at the Foundation.

The interior is dominated by a skeleton of a Bryde's whale.

The whale had washed up, deceased, in 1995.

Our friend Rick got this photo of the skeleton showing the head and jaws.

Then we were on our own to stroll back into town, take in the sights or shop, and all meet again at a café, The Rock, for further adventures. Here is what I call the "ceramics wall" just off the main street.

Joan had been in touch with Ros Cameron, who, along with her son, Mason, we had met on a Lindblad Antarctic trip in 2003. In this photo, we see Ros, Joan, and a young Mason.

Ros worked for the Darwin Foundation at the time, but now works for the Galapagos Conservancy, where she is currently the Development Officer. She has a wide knowledge of the doings in the Galapagos, both official and local, and we had arranged to meet her at the café. But she came down the street on her bicycle as Joan and I were walking towards it! Joan called out and we had a mini-tour with Ros on our way to the café.

Next to the docks at Puerto Ayora is the fish market. Rick, visiting at different time, took much better pictures here than I did.

As you can see, pelicans were clustered around, hoping for a treat, perhaps a stolen fish head. Rick was intrigued with the pelicans and captured this stunning shot of one coming in to land.

A molting sea lion was nestled among all the human feet.

Ros also took us inside the Catholic cathedral. She reported that the Galapagos is collage of religions and proselytizers: Catholic, Latter Day Saints (Mormons), Protestant (evangelical and otherwise), and various offbeat groups. This statue of St. Francis is outside the cathedral; note the tortoise in the left background.

The interior is light and airy, appropriate for the hot climate of these islands.

A closeup of the colored panel -- pelicans!

Close by on the docks was the display of the cigarette crusader. (We'd seen it earlier, briefly, but came back to visit.)

This man, an ex-fisherman, collects the cigarette butts from the local streets and bags them to make a point. He also has two statues, "Nico" and "Tina," made from the same noxious material.

And he sells a book about his 77 days adrift in a fishing boat whose engine failed. We bought a copy.

Then it was off to the café for a cool drink, and further chin-wagging with Ros. She would also join us for dinner aboard the Islander in the evening.

Rick had decided to begin the next stage of the day with a three-mile mountain bike ride, while Joan and I took the last bus. All of us were headed for an artisanal coffee and sugar cane planation, "El Trapiche." But that will start the next post.