After our usual early start and tasty big brekky, we headed to the Charles Darwin Research Station. Here our naturalist Lobo showed us round a number of exhibitions about the conservation work being performed currently in Galapagos. These also focused on the various threats to endemic species from introduced species such as ferral goats, dogs, cats, rats and many more, and the work being done to irradicate them.
Lobo pointed our this poorly looking cactus as an example of the damage an El Nino year can do to local fauna. The huge increase in rainful that results is lethal to the cactii as they simply don't know when to stop absorbing water.
Also at the research station is the fasciniating Land Tortoise breeding and repatriation centre. We peeked into this building that used to be where the hatchlings were kept until there numbers and differing species meant they needed more room. It is now a storage facility full of lots of old bones. You can see to the right at the rear the top of a Humpback Whale's skull.
And here are the first Giant Land Tortoise hatchlings we came across. These ones are 1-2 years old. The doors on top are there to prevent local predators such as cats and rats, getting in at night.
These two seemed to be having a slow motion race.
Next we came to the first of three large corrals where the huge beasts could roam free. We were actually incredibly lucky to see this rather bizarre sight. This is a tortoise name Lonesome George getting his end away. He is the only surviving member of the Isla Pinta subspecies and was brought here in an attempt to prevent the extinction of his kind. Sadly, so far he hasn't been taken with any of the females that he lives with and has yet to produce any offspring. Fingers crossed that the events we witnessed may change that!
As we walked through the other corrals we got up close and personal with these incredible beasts.
Such bizarre beaky mouths.
This grumpy old bugger went around annoying all the other tortoises in its corral by trying to bite them...very slowly.
Oh hi!
They didn't seem to mind us posing for piccies.
Any resemblance?
There were loads of these sprightly little Lava Lizards bouncing around on the rocks.
After we left the research station we headed back through town and came to the comedy sight of the local fishermen gutting there catch for the market close by. It attracted a motley crew of Pelicans, Frigate birds and Sealions eager for some easy pickings.
When we walked round the far side of the fish market we saw this amazing sight. A Great Blue Heron slyly standing to one side as the fish was weighed - 'You ain't seen me, right?'.
As we waited for our dinghies to take us back to the boat we looked over the side of the municipal dock and saw these marine iguanas all hanging on...quite often to each other.
'Excuse me please, I'm just trying to get through'
The water looked a gorgeous blue against the rugged cliffs.
That afternoon we all piled into a minibus and headed off to the highlands of Santa Cruz. It is a big island almost 16 miles across and at its highest peak reaches over 800m. Here we headed first to an area where the local wild tortoise population inhabit. After a short muddy trek we got to see them in the wild.
Hmmm. Check out the intense concentration...On us that is, this fella was busy munching.
An actual giant tortoise, chilling in the vegetation.
We also passed these wild chilly bushes. Lobo asked us to try it, and only the (unusually) cocky kiwi Mike did, to comedy effect as it blew his head off.
Sadly although it looks like we had the place to ourselves, there was a much larger group of tourtards milling about looking lost.
Here's Lobo demonstrating his massive strength and showing us a bit of the anotomy of the tortoise. It was actually quite interesting as you could see how its joints fit into the shell.
A close up of the shell.
After this we jumped back in the minibus and headed off to a lava tunnel. This was a natural geological formation that is more than a kilometre in length. It was formed by the solidifying of the outside skin of a molten lava flow. It was huge in places...
But got so low that we had to do a comedy forward limbo to get through the narrowest bit without covering ourselves in mud. I love this picture!
And this one!
After this we headed up to another stunning geological feature of the island. The beautiful Los Gemelos were formed when a volcanic chamber collapsed on itself some millions of years past.
Here's our friends from Israel - Uri and Einat, who unfortunately had their camera knicked just before the trip. Don't worry guys...you can share all ours!
All around the craters, was beautiful Scalesia forest, with this brightly coloured lichen hanging off everything.
Some lovely vibrant ferns.
This was the second larger crater on the other side of the road. Honestly, I wasn't trying to push Clairy over.
Gorgeous clouds above.
Great echoes too (although you might not be able to discern that from the pictures).
After this Lobo asked us if we fancied visiting a coffee plantation for a tiny extra 3 dollars each (it wasn't on the planned itinerary) and we all agreed. We were running out of time so it was a bit of a flying visit, but what a great experience it was.
We arrived and the farmer and his wife greeted us all very warmly. The farmer swiftly took us down to what turned out to be his home made distillery! The guy on the right checking it out quite closely is our bus driver. I reckon he'll be a repeat customer.
Here he made a sugar cane type liquor that we all got to try. It was outrageously pokey, above 55% apparently. He also made an aniseed type liqueur that I also got my hands on and enjoyed.
He demonstrated how he crushed the sugar cane here, in one of many Heath-Robinson style machines.
After crushing a load up he sieved it through a cloth and we all tried some. It had a lovely sweet flavour. Naturally I asked for a top up of the liquor in mine.
This was the huge bath type container where he would boil the sugar cane juice to make beautiful unrefined sugar blocks. We bought one of these blocks to send home to go with nice coffee one day.
To remove the coffee husks once the beans had dried he would fill this wooden container to the brim with them and then mash it with his giant wooden pestle. He would then lift the beans up and drop them down whilst a gentle breeze would blow the removed husks away. It was quite an ingenious technique.
Here he is with his mahoosive industrial grinder (and Kirsty looking fascinated).
Here are the coffee beans in their various different stages. On the right just picked, on the left with husks removed, and in the middle after roasting. We tried the coffee too and it was delicious.
After this we headed back to town and onto the boat. Each evening Lobo would go through the activities for the following day. For the most part everybody understood what was presented to them. Unfortunately, Josephine, the French lady that made every explanation twice as long by requiring a Spanish translation sometimes seemed to struggle with the Spanish as well. This often resulted in Lobo going into 'Outrageous Thicko Explanation Mode', and the rest of us had to struggle to contain our silent screams.
One such explanation was 'The Barrel' at Post Office Bay, that we were due to visit the next day. Here we can see they seem to have finally got it!
As we were not leaving the anchorage at Puerto Ayora till 3 in the morning for our first 'Proper Rough' navigation, we figured we should damn well get some drinks down and headed back into town in the evening. Here are our bestest chums Kirsty and Johann (British and German respectively...but sensibly living in New Zealand...bonus) and Eleanore (from Kentucky).
The 'Limon y Cafe' bar was a cheerfully pleasant place to sink a few beers (apart from some seriously rancid toilets) before heading back to the boat by water taxi. Luckily the driver knew where all the boats were, because I certainly didn't have a clue by that point.
1 comment:
Great to see you both looking so cheerful, but unlucky having the French thickie! xx
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