Santa Cruz Island, Galapagos

Giant tortoise meandering

Santa Cruz Island is not the largest island in the Galapagos, but it has the largest permanent population (Isabella is the largest island, united into one body of land by repeated eruptions of its several volcanoes).  San Cristobal is the administrative capital; Santa Cruz is the commercial hub, if you can call it that with only 32,000 permanent residents living in the Galapagos.  Certainly it is a much larger town than San Cristobal and has an airport as well.  Most of our crew were born here and continue to live here with their families.  The crews work 6 weeks on and 3 weeks off.  Our guide, however, is a free lancer, also born on Santa Cruz Island, also living here with his wife and 2 daughters, but he chooses his boats and his work weeks (which is most of the time, he says).

sunset off Santa Cruz island

The Galapagos is home to giant land tortoises as well.  Because the population was decimated before the 1960’s and has only recently been considered endangered, there is now a big effort to increase their numbers.  Santa Cruz Island has a very interesting breeding center and several farms in the highlands that serve as refuges for these huge creatures.  We visited both.

First, Santa Cruz, unlike most of the Galapagos Islands has several climate zones.  Near the water, the environment is dryer, but as you drive up to the mountains (about 2500 feet high) you get into a cloud forest with lots of rain and fog, so able to support a true rain forest.

sinkhole where lava ceiling collapsed

Our first visit was to 2 very large sink holes, much like the cenotes or wells you find in the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico, but much bigger.  These sink holes were formed when the underlying structure, which was probably a volcanic cavern roofed by lava, collapsed thousands of years ago.  The lava flows also formed numerous tunnels like this one:

lava tunnel

Higher up, we visited a farm that is a land tortoise haven and saw the most enormous tortoises lolling in the mud holes or moving ponderously through the high grass.  This was just a thrill to me as I’ve never seen these animals outside of a zoo.  One of these giants lived to be at least 175 years old, so it is expected that their lifespans could be close to 200 years.  Their heads are not beautiful, looking battered with thick scales almost like callouses, but they are handsome creatures nonetheless with their beautiful shells and giant legs and feet. 

giant tortoise head and front legs

Closer to the main town of Puerto Aroyo, there is a tortoise breeding center named after Charles Darwin.  The center staff go out to the beaches on the nights the tortoises lay their eggs and scoops up hundreds of them to put into incubators.  When they hatch, they are carefully tended and moved from enclosure to enclosure until they are large enough to be on their own, about 4 years old.  Next they are put into much larger enclosures where they need to fend for themselves before being released to the various islands to, hopefully, reproduce and repopulate the tortoises on each island.  Since each island had its own sub-species of tortoise, the center is trying to return to each island only those individuals whose genetics match the original tortoises of that island.  Couldn’t get a really clear answer as to how they determined the genetics of each island’s tortoises since the animals became extinct on all but a couple of the islands decades ago.

2 year old tortoises at Darwin breeding center

Several years ago, the breeding center was given 2 young male tortoises.  The staff tried to get them interested in a female, but they didn’t seem to care about her until they put the 2 young ones, the female and an old male into the same enclosure.  The old male quickly taught the 2 young ones what to do and now all is going well with this aspect of the breeding program.

Santa Cruz’ harbor is always full of boats, even more so than San Cristobal.  Tourism is the heart of the Galapagos’ economy, so virtually every economic activity has some relationship to tourism.  

Santa Cruz fresh fish market with patient sea lions

The local fish market has beautiful fresh fish daily.  Sea lions and pelicans are customers also and don't seem to bother the patrons much.