What a special day to visit the Tortoise Ecological Reserve, Fausto Llerena Breeding Center, and Puerto Ayora on Santa Cruz Island. It was even more special because it was my birthday! What a way to celebrate!
The geography in this part of Santa Cruz is completely different from the lava fields. It is the first town we saw since we boarded the ship 7 days before. There are about 23,000 people who live there. Some of the buildings are a bit interesting so I took a picture as we were going by.
The land is rich and there are farmers of all sorts growing everything from coffee to crops and dairy cows. We actually saw tortoises wandering alongside the road. The tortoises don’t really pay any attention to the cars going by them.
The bus took us to the Tortoise Ecological Reserve which is about 45 minutes inland. It turns out that the “reserve” is actually a farmer’s field. The farmers on Santa Cruz are paid to protect the tortoises. The farmers needed to fence their property so their dairy cows don’t wander off and the tortoises just live there. The solution is that the bottom wire of the fencing is tall enough for the tortoises to go through and low enough that the cows won’t wander off the property. This particular property backed up to a real preserve.
The tortoises are everywhere you look. The property had watering holes and they just go from place to place very slowly. Once your eyes get used to looking for them, you realize they are everywhere. It is like going Easter Egg Hunting only for tortoises.
They have paths throughout the property but we were able to walk off the paths to get a closer look. At the end of the paths, the farmers have food and drinks as well as bathrooms available so it is a very civilized way to see these magnificent creatures.
We opted to forgo the trip to the breeding center because we saw so many tortoises that we didn’t think we needed to see it. As it turned out, the people who went said the morning trip was actually much better.
By the time we got back to the ship for lunch, I decided it was going to be champagne for the rest of the day to celebrate. Also, we had to pack because we would be leaving the ship the next morning.
It was a great trip. We were awed by what we saw and hope it remains available in perpetuity but we wonder about global warming and its effects on the wildlife there.
