#Pinzon Island Tortoise

[arbitraryreveries]

Yes, I do have a folder on my laptop labelled "tortoises."

[erikacousland]

Pinzon Island tortoise hatchling emerging from its egg at the Charles Darwin Research Station on Santa Cruz Island, Galápagos Islands, Ecuador © Pete Oxford/Minden Pictures

Today on Bing February 12, 2020   Wake up, it's Darwin Day On Charles Darwin's birthday, we celebrate Darwin Day—and, of course, there's no better place to do that than the Galápagos Islands. Darwin is best known for his theory of evolution by natural selection, which he published in his 1859 book 'On the Origin of Species.' During his travels to the Galápagos Islands years earlier, Darwin observed creatures that were similar from island to island but had slightly different adaptations to better survive in their specific environments. This became a key component of his research. The islands are home to thousands of unique species, including this Pinzon Island tortoise, which we see hatching from an egg at the Charles Darwin Research Station.

These tortoises were once at the brink of extinction in the wild due to several factors, including centuries of capture by humans and predation by invasive rats. But thanks to conservation efforts at the Charles Darwin Research Station on Santa Cruz Island in the Galápagos, they're beginning to successfully hatch in the wild for the first time in more than 150 years.

[wigmund]

From The Scientist Image of the Day; February 20, 2017:

Return of the Giant Tortoise Joshua A. Krisch; Photo: Rory Stansbury

Thanks to conservation efforts, the critically endangered Pinzon Island Tortoise (Chelonoidis duncanesis) reproduced in 2015 for the first time in 100 years, and many of the offspring are now adults.

[fotografodegalapagos]

Galápagos y pinzones de Darwin, isla Isabela, Galápagos. . Follow us 👉🏼 @fotografodegalapagos . #jovenesfotografosdegalapagos . Suscríbete a mi BLOG link in my bio. . . . . . . #wildlife #galapagos #galápagos #galapagosislands #paisajes #viajes #retrato #naturaleza #foto #guayaquil #ecuadoramalavida #samborondon #ecuadorturistico #latinoamerica #quito #ecuador #ecuadorprimero #fotografo #fotografodegalapagos #tortoise #pinzon (en Galapagos Islands) https://www.instagram.com/p/CM001genqip/?igshid=87mrf0shdq5q

[vl2smith]

The islands are home to thousands of unique species, including this Pinzon Island tortoise, which we see hatching from an egg at the Charles Darwin Research Station. These tortoises were once at the brink of extinction in the wild due to several factors, including centuries of capture by humans and predation by invasive rats. But thanks to conservation efforts at the Charles Darwin Research Station on Santa Cruz Island in the Galápagos, they're beginning to successfully hatch in the wild for the first time in more than 150 years.

[realdreamx]

#Bing 'Pinzon Island tortoise hatchling emerging from its egg at the Charles Darwin Research Station on Santa Cruz Island, Galápagos Islands, Ecuador (© Pete Oxford/Minden Pictures) February 12, 2020 at 03:30AM'

[wejustdunnit]

Galapagos (6/28/17 - 7/8/17)

The day after we got back from the Amazon it was time to head to the Galapagos.  Getting there was a little like planes, trains, and automobiles only it was taxi, plane, bus, ferry, bus before we got to Hostal El Pinzon on Santa Cruz island.  Once we checked in we hit the ground running, because unlike most places we visited we didn’t have anything booked in hopes of getting some deals to cut the cost.  We ended up booking a couple dives trips and day trips to the surrounding islands.

The next day we went on a trip to Mosquera and North Seymour.  When we got to Mosquera we immediately saw sea lions and were so excited.  I also loved the sally light foot crabs too, the bright red ones, because their color against the black volcanic rocks was stunning.  In North Seymour we got to see lots of friget birds, the black birds with red balloons on their throat that expand, and blue footed boobies, grey birds with colorful blue feet.  There were land iguanas and a couple small marine iguanas too.  All of these animals are some of the most iconic in the Galapagos so we were happy.  When we got back we had a little stress because we found out our scuba trip for the following day was canceled.  Unfortunately, that meant running around to book another scuba trip so we wouldn’t have a wasted day, luckily it worked out for the best.

Our last minute dive change was to Seymour and Daphne.  We saw some turtles and lots of white tip sharks.  The following morning we went on a trip to Bartolome. It was far so it was a long day, but we saw some penguins and similar birds as North Seymour.  However, the trip was mainly seeing and learning about the volcanic nature of the island with amazing scenery too. We had another dive day planned to Gordon’s Rock which is known to have some pretty strong currents, luckily we didn’t have any issues that day.  We saw lots of turtles, hammerheads, and as a pleasant surprise we saw 2 mola mola aka sunfish pretty close.

After all our adventures on Santa Cruz we headed off to Isabela at Cerro Azul.  In the afternoon we went on a kayaking trip where we saw eagle rays, penguins, turtles, and sea lions.  The following day we went to the Sierra Negra Volcano, found out that the crater is actually the 2nd largest in the world next to Ngorongoro Crater in Tanzania.  We had a busy day next up to Los Tuneles where to our surprise the snorkeling was pretty good including golden rays, turtles, sharks, and a playful sea lion.  Later in the afternoon we went to Tintoreras which fell a little flat for us.  

It was now time to go back to Santa Cruz only to find out that the company who booked the ferry didn’t pay the boat.  We were really annoyed and had to shell out more money so we could back on the extremely choppy boat with a few people getting sick along the way.  When we got to Santa Cruz we let the company owner have a large piece of our mind.  It was a loud crazy exchange but we got the money back.  

Over the next couple of days we did a couple more dives which weren’t that good and visited other sites on the island.  Unfortunately, the galapagos shark alluded us throughout the trip.  We went to El Chato Tortoise Reserve and Tortuga Bay.  There were lots of tortoises roaming around on the reserve and there were lots of marine iguanas at the bay too.  

The Galapagos Islands were on our list of places we would like to see.  Along the way we heard mixed things and of course the cost was a huge factor.  We made it and are glad we experienced it.  In our opinion we felt that the diving was what made the experience the most memorable.  There was only one more place for us to visit before heading home... Cuba!

[francbiliard-blog]

Galapagos Giant Tortoises Make A Comeback, Thanks To Innovative Conservation Strategies

The Galapagos Islands are world-famous as a laboratory of biological evolution. Some 30 percent of the plants, 80 percent of the land birds and 97 percent of the reptiles on this remote archipelago are found nowhere else on Earth. Perhaps the most striking example is the islands iconic giant tortoises, which often live to ages over 100 years in the wild. Multiple species of these mega-herbivores have evolved in response to conditions on the island or volcano where each lives, generating wide variation in shell shape and size.

Over the past 200 years, hunting and invasive species reduced giant tortoise populations by an estimated 90 percent, destroying several species and pushing others to the brink of extinction, although a few populations on remote volcanoes remained abundant.

Remains of tortoises killed by hunters, Galapagos Islands, 1903. R.H. Beck/Library of Congress

Now however, the tortoise dynasty is on the road to recovery, thanks to work by the Galapagos National Park Directorate, with critical support from nonprofits like the Galapagos Conservancy and advice from an international team of conservation scientists.

Together we are advancing a broad multiyear program called the Giant Tortoise Restoration Initiative, overseen by Washington Tapia, Linda Cayot and myself with major collaboration from Gisella Caccone at Yale University. Using many novel strategies, the initiative helps guide the Galapagos National Park Directorate to restore viable, self-sustaining tortoise populations and recover the ecosystems in which these animals evolved.

Back from the brink

As many as 300,000 giant tortoises once roamed the Galapagos Islands. Whalers and colonists started collecting them for food in the 19th century. Early settlers introduced rats, pigs and goats, which preyed upon tortoises or destroyed their habitat. As a result, it was widely concluded by the 1940s that giant tortoises were headed for oblivion.

After the Galapagos National Park was established in 1959, park guards halted killing of tortoises for food. Next, biologists at what was then known as the Charles Darwin Research Station did the first inventory of surviving tortoises. They also initiated a program to help recover imperiled species.

One species, the Pinzon Island tortoise, had not produced any juveniles for over 100 years because nonnative black rats were preying on hatchlings. In 1965 park guards started methodically removing eggs from tortoise nests, rearing the offspring to rat-proof size in captivity and releasing them back into the wild. More than 5,000 young tortoises have been repatriated back to Pinzon Island. Many are now adults. This program is one of the most successful examples of head-starting to save a species in conservation history.

Storpilot/Wikipedia

The Espaola tortoise, which once numbered in the thousands, had been reduced to just 15 individuals by 1960. Park guards brought those 15 into captivity, where they have produced more than 2,000 captive-raised offspring now released onto their home island. All 15 survivors are still alive and reproducing today, and the wild population numbers more than 1,000. This is one of the greatest and least-known conservation success stories of any species.

Eliminating nonnative threats

Over the past 150 years, goats brought to the islands by early settlers overgrazed many of the islands, turning them into dustbowls and destroying forage, shade and water sources that tortoises relied on. In 1997 the Galapagos Conservancy launched Project Isabela, the largest ecosystem restoration initiative ever carried out in a protected area.

Over a decade park wardens, working closely with Island Conservation, used high-tech hunting tactics, helicopter support and Judas goats animals fitted with radio collars that led hunters to the last remaining herds to eliminate over 140,000 feral goats from virtually all of the archipelago.

Building on lessons learned from Project Isabela, the Galapagos National Park Directorate and Island Conservation then eradicated nonnative rats from Pinzn Island in 2012, enabling tortoise hatchlings to survive and complete their life cycle again for the first time in a century.

Restoring ecosystems with tortoises

The argument for tortoise conservation has been strengthened by reconceptualizing giant tortoises as agents whose actions shape the ecosystems around them. Tortoises eat and disperse many plants as they move around and they are more mobile than many people realize. By attaching GPS tags to tortoises, scientists with the Galapagos Tortoise Movement Ecology Programme have learned that tortoises migrate tens of kilometers up and down volcanoes seasonally to get to new plant growth and nesting sites.

As they move, tortoises crush vegetation. They may be an important factor in maintaining the native savannah-like ecosystems on the islands where they live. When tortoises are scarce, we think that shrubs sprout up, crowding out many herbaceous plants and other animal species.

We need data to support this theory, so we have constructed an elaborate system of exclosures on two islands that wall tortoises out of certain areas. By comparing vegetation in the tortoise-free zones to conditions outside of the exclosures, we will see just how tortoises shape their ecosystems.

Restoring ecosystems on islands where tortoises have gone extinct requires more drastic steps. Santa Fe Island lost its endemic giant tortoises more than 150 years ago, and its ecosystems are still recovering from a scourge of goats. Park managers are attempting to restore the island using an analog, nonnative species the genetically and morphologically similar Espaola tortoise.

In 2015 the Galapagos National Park Directorate released 201 juvenile Espaola tortoises in the interior of Santa Fe Island. They all appear to have survived their first year there, and 200 more are scheduled for release in 2017. Espaola tortoises are still endangered, so this strategy has the extra value of creating a reserve population of them on Santa Fe island.

On Pinta Island, which also has lost its endemic tortoise, park managers have released sterilized nonnative tortoises to serve as vegetation management tools that can prepare the habitat for future introductions of reproductive tortoises. These initiatives are some of the first-ever to use analog species to jump-start plant community restoration.

Reviving lost species

The endemic tortoises of Floreana Island are also considered to be extinct. But geneticists recently discovered that in a remote location on Isabela Island, tortoises evidently had been translocated from around the archipelago during the whaling era. In a major expedition in 2015, park rangers and collaborating scientists removed 32 tortoises from Isabela Island with shell features similar to the extinct Pinta and Floreana species.

Now the geneticists are exploring the degree of interbreeding of these 32 distinct tortoises between the extinct species and native Wolf Volcano tortoises. We are hoping to find a few pure survivors from the extinct species. Careful and selective breeding of tortoises in captivity with significant levels of either Pinta or Floreana ancestry will follow to produce a new generation of young tortoises to be released back on Pinta and Floreana Islands and help their ecosystems recover.

Removing a Wolf Volcano tortoise from Isabela Island for the Floreana tortoise restoration initiative. Jane Braxton Little, CC BY-NC-ND

Converting tragedy to inspiration

Lonesome George, the last known living Pinta Island giant tortoise, died in 2012 after decades in captivity. His frozen remains were transferred to the United States and taxidermied by world-class experts. In mid-February Lonesome George will be returned to Galapagos once again and ensconced as the focus of a newly renovated park visitation center. Some 150,000 visitors each year will learn the complex but ultimately encouraging story of giant tortoise conservation, and a beloved family member will rest back at home again.

James P. Gibbs, Professor of Vertebrate Conservation Biology and Director of the Roosevelt Wild Life Station, State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

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[gsdqt]

A Century Later, Baby Tortoises Have Been Discovered Thriving On the Galapagos Island of Pinzon

A Century Later, Baby Tortoises Have Been Discovered Thriving On the Galapagos Island of Pinzon

Posted on: September 5, 2019 at 7:14 pm

In the 18th century, an unfortunate incident with stow-away hungry rats from a docking ship led to the depletion of the tortoise population in the Galapagos Island of Pinzon, Ecuador [1]. The species was formerly thriving and basking in their numbers���

[livefromelsewhere]

One of my biggest concerns with visiting the Galapagos was my ability to handle the inter-island boats rides across the rough seas here. I took a lot of precautions to book bigger boats when possible, load up on sea sickness meds and even wore balance bracelets to help, and yet, the boats were still a problem, but not in the way you'd expect. After two great days on Santa Cruz, it was time to head to Isabella, the largest and least developed of the populated islands, which is located on the Western edge of the archipelago. I booked a round trip ticket (with an open return date, since I wasn't sure of my exact plans there) with the agency who handled my snorkeling trip and reported to the pier at 6:45 am on Monday for my boat. However, when I went to check in, my name wasn't on the list for the boat I was supposed to be on. After talking to the guy in charge, I finally convinced him to call my agent and they were finally able to work everything out, as there were a handful of extra spots left on the boat, one of which I took. It was a nerve wracking start to an experience I was already nervous about. This mixup was just a harbinger of what was to happen on the return trip, but I'll save that for later. The boat ride itself was like riding the dipsie do part of a roller coaster (the quick section with a bunch of small ups and downs) for two and half hours, sideways, and with no seat belts. Let's just say you know it's gonna be rough when the first thing they do when you get on the boat is hand out barf bags. By some miracle, I was actually able to handle the ride alright, but a few others on my boat weren't so lucky. It was an arduous and somewhat exhausting ride. After finally arriving on Isabella, I headed to my hostel and checked in. I planned to use the day for a few different activities, but mother nature wasn't so kind. It started pouring rain the second I checked in and didn't let up all morning. I took advantage of the downtime to nap, read, and talk to a few American students who were in my hostel, but headed out for a quick bite and a hike as soon as it stopped that afternoon. Unfortunately for me, the rain left a heavy veil of humidity over the island, which meant that it felt like I was walking through the ocean with every step. Let's just say I was nearly delirious by the time I returned to my hostel after the 8 mile hike through the heat. My destination was the Muro de Lagrimas (Wall of Tears), a wall to nowhere built by political prisoners when the island was originally a penal colony. The wall itself is nothing special, it's kept up as a historical marker, but the path there is littered with different wild animals, including Galapagos turtles, flamingos, marine iguanas, and lava lizards. After the hike, I took in the town where I was staying, Puerto Villamil, which is literally the only town on the island, picked up some food from the market and passed out extra early. On Tuesday, I scheduled my tour of Los Tuneles, the main reason most people visit Isabella. Los Tuneles is not only a neat geological site with lava tunnels/bridges (see above) located along the coast, but it's also a safe haven for a number of animals, both in water and on land. The first part of the tour involved walking along the top of the lava looking at sea turtles swimming out to sea after spending the night in the lagoons, spying a fur seal lounging in the sun, and watching the mating dance of the blue footed booby. We next jumped back in our boat, which literally had to surf on the waves to get through the rough seas, to the next location where we were actually allowed to snorkel through the tunnels. Unfortunately, the pictures from the guide didn't turn out well, due to low visibility, but we were able to see several 4-5 ft white tipped reef sharks, a sea horse, a marble ray, a number of gigantic sea turtles (these things were way bigger than I am and much bigger than those I had seen previously at Pinzon), and some more fish. It was a very neat tour and helped me check off a few more of the animals I was looking to see in the islands. That afternoon, I checked out a turtle reserve a mile from town and spent the rest of the daylight hanging on the beautiful beach located a few minutes walk from my hostel. I grabbed some deliciously fresh seafood empanadas for dinner and spent the rest of the night hanging at the hostel. I had planned on leaving Wednesday morning on a 6 am boat back to Puerto Ayora on Santa Cruz, which I had arranged with my tour agent via text. She sent me a confirmation text with the boat name and time, but again when I showed up, my name wasn't on the list for the boat. This time, however, since my ticket was open and didn't explicitly list the boat I was supposed to take, the captain refused to take me even when I showed him my ticket and the text. There were a few other folks in a similar situation on a different boat, but they at least had tickets with the proper boat name on it, so they were eventually guaranteed passage on that boat later in the day. I, however, was kind of up shits creek without a paddle, since I had nothing but a text message to claim a seat. I went and talked to the police officer in charge of the port, but he was reluctant to help. Eventually after talking to a bunch of different people (other boat captains, other passengers, the taxi lady) on the pier and repeatedly making my case, there was enough pressure put on the marinero (marine officer) to help me out. Mind you, at this point, my original boat had left because it had taken so long to convince the officer to help. He grabbed me and we jumped in a taxi boat (you have to take taxi boats to everything here, they're the only boats allowed to actually go to the pier, which is a racket, but I digress) and we chased down the last remaining boat to Puerto Ayora. We did laps around the boat in the taxi so that it wouldn't leave and the marinero negotiated on my behalf with the boat captain, who was reluctant to take me, since he was already full. Eventually after enough back and forth and some demands made by the officer, he agreed to take me as long as I paid him a full fare, which I was happy to do, as my tour agent had already promised me a full refund, since I had gotten her on the phone to try and get this worked out. I crammed myself into the last half spot on the boat and we were off on the rollercoaster ride back to Puerto Ayora. I guess the lesson here is sometimes you just have to make your own luck and never book an open return ticket. After that mess, the rough boat ride went along seemingly swimmingly, though I did end up with a bruise on my shoulder from repeatedly bashing into the wall next to me. Upon returning to Puerto Ayora after that morning I was just greatful that things had worked out and I would be able to enjoy my final day in the islands. I returned to my original hostel again and met Nina, a German girl, who was looking to visit the same places in the highlands of the island. We shared a cab up from town, with our first stop being Los Gemelos, two craters that were created when caverns created by lava flows collapsed leading to giant depressions in the forest. After walking around them and taking in all of the birds that lubed in the surrounding forests, we were whisked away to El Chato, a tortoise reserve, where we saw close to 20 tortoises in their native habitat. Our final stop was a long lava tunnel (about a half mile) that we walked, clambored, and crawled through before returning to town. We spent the rest of the afternoon hanging on a beach near the Darwin Research Center before grabbing a delicious seafood dinner on a street packed with restaurants serving food in the literal street on plastic tables and chairs they threw out there. I ran into two Americans (Shira and Grant) who had also been screwed over earlier that morning in the boat fiasco on Isabella. They had been part of the group that had actual tickets and were rescheduled for the afternoon boat, but we're equally as dismayed at the whole process as I was. We spent the rest of the evening chatting before heading our separate ways home. That brings me up to today, which is almost entirely a travel day. I was able to swing by the Darwin Center this morning for a little less than an hour to catch an exhibit I had missed before, but I had to hustle back to my hostel to catch a cab to the airport at 10:30am. Well actually it was a cab to a ferry to a bus to the airport (man, they don't make it simple here). My first flight took me from the Galapagos Islands to Quito, where I then took a second flight on to Lima, Peru. It's been an awesome first two weeks of traveling here in Ecuador. I can't recommend the country enough to people to come and visit. The crazy thing is I could have spent another 2 weeks here and still had things to do. I'm definitely circling Ecuador as a place I'd like to come back to. I'll throw up an Ecuador wrap up post later, but that's all for now.

[gilespaxman]

Puerto Ayora part 2: Tortoises

We took a stroll to see the giant tortoises at the Darwin Centre. Amazingly, there are 11 seperate species on the islands, 2 having recently become extinct. Experts can tell which island they come from by the shape of their shell: flattish for the more rainy islands, where food is more readily available at ground level and pointed with high collar for the dryer ones, where they have to reach upwards to eat the cactuses. We saw one of the latter, with a big no 28 painted on his back like a ballroom dancer, doing his best for the propagation of his species. A rather leisurely affair.

We also met "Lonesome George", or rather what remains of him as he died 5 years ago at the age of 110 to 120 ( no one really knows). George was the last of his kind from the island of Pinzon. Three female tortoises, who would no doubt have made excellent companions, were removed from the island in 1906 to send to zoos and when George was also removed in the early 70's an exhaustive search was made of Pinzon and zoos around the world to find a mate, sadly to no avail. George's stuffed remains now reside in splendour in a dedicated climate controlled building, rather like Lenin in his mausoleum. There, with his head held high,  he gazes wistfully out over a landscape created to remind him of his native island.

Poor George! Perhaps, though, not as much to pity as his ancestors, who for centuries were kidnapped in huge numbers by passing sailors as fresh meat, on the grounds that tortoises can live for up to a year piled up in the hold of a ship without food or water.

[katsavesanimals]

The Galapagos Tortoises: Darwin's Examples 🐢

Ever heard of the beautiful Galápagos Islands? These islands are located in the Pacific Ocean about 1,000 miles from South America. They are known for about 80% of their animals not being found anywhere else on the island. One prime example of these unique animals include the Galapagos Tortoise. These Giant tortoises can live over 100 years old in their natural habitat and vary in size and shell shape according to the island they live on. Populations living on more humid highlands have larger shells and those living in the dry lowlands have smaller, “saddleback” shells (https://theconversation.com/galapagos-giant-tortoises-make-a-comeback-thanks-to-innovative-conservation-strategies-67591) They can grow up to 800lbs and move so slowly that lichen, “a composite organism that arises from algae or cyanobacteria living among filaments of multiple fungi” (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lichen), can grow on their shells. These unique herbivores live only on the Galápagos Islands and were almost hunted to extinction over the past 200 years. After Charles Darwin documented what he found on these islands and the world learned of his theory of evolution the subject of science was changed forever. Unfortunately one of the amazing and unique animals he studied on these islands was hunted by humans and invasive species until 90% of the original population was gone, this animal was the Galápagos Tortoise. “Now however, the tortoise dynasty is on the road to recovery, thanks to work by the Galapagos National Park Directorate, with critical support from nonprofits like the Galapagos Conservancy” (https://theconversation.com/galapagos-giant-tortoises-make-a-comeback-thanks-to-innovative-conservation-strategies-67591) These organizations worked to stop the killing of the tortoises for food and eliminated nonnative species that hurt the tortoises, such as the feral goats that would overgraze the islands and turn them into dust bowls. The species on the Pinzon Island had not produced any offspring for almost 100 years due to nonnative black rats killing and eating the hatchlings. “In 1965 park guards started methodically removing eggs from tortoise nests, rearing the offspring to “rat-proof” size in captivity and releasing them back into the wild”. (https://theconversation.com/galapagos-giant-tortoises-make-a-comeback-thanks-to-innovative-conservation-strategies-67591) Organizations such as these are critical in saving species, and in this case, the tortoises may not have been able to come back from the brink of exctinction. Once it was found that these unique herbivores were becoming close to exctinction it became increasingly important to save them. Without these tortoises and many other animals on the Galápagos Islands then Darwin might not have been able to formulate his theory of evolution and therefore our current scientific understanding. Imagining a world without Darwin's theory can be very different from the one we know now. The World would probably still be under the impression that a “God” had made all things the way they are and any change is “unholy” or “evil” This way of thinking would certainly make true progress almost impossible in all walks of life. Without the knowledge of evolution one might wonder how dinosaurs would have been explained, how history would be explained, or how we would understand our connections to animals throughout our earth. If Darwin had not come up with his theory then maybe someone else would have. But when? Probably later than Darwin and that may have cause progress to be slower and possibly we as a species wouldn't understand the importance of animals to our ecosystems and our own lives. It's true that humans still require constant data and research to be assured that our knowledge is indeed correct.

 Size comparison~ Source:https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/1z0zht/giant_galapagos_tortoise/ Sources:https://theconversation.com/galapagos-giant-tortoises-make-a-comeback-thanks-to-innovative-conservation-strategies-67591 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lichen 3/29/17

[livefromelsewhere]

When I first started thinking about going to South America there were a few places I circled as things I had to do along the way. I'm fortunate enough to have been able to spend the last few days exploring one of those, the Galapagos Islands. I've decided to break this up into two parts because its my blog and I can do want I want to, but also because trying to jam five and a half days of adventure into a single post is a daunting task. This post will cover my first stop, Santa Cruz, the main and most populous of the Galapagos islands. To get to Santa Cruz, I had to leave Quito at 3:45 am on Saturday morning to catch a cab to the airport for my early flight. Going to the Galapagos islands is a lot like going to a separate country, but on steroids. You have to get a special visa, there are strict restrictions on what you can and can't bring on the plane to avoid contamination of the islands, they fumigate all of the bags on the plane, even the ones in the overhead bins, and when you arrive you have to walk through mats that contain disinfectant, so that the bottoms' of your shoes don't bring anything in either. After arriving in Santa Cruz, well technically Baltra island, you have to take a bus to a ferry (from Baltra to Santa Cruz) to a bus to get to the main town of Puerto Ayora, where almost everyone stays. However, all of the hassle is worth it. The island is beautiful and the animals are plentiful, even in town. If you just spend a few minutes walking around town or on the pier, you'll find a ton of animals living their lives as if us humans weren't even there. It's a pretty cool experience. Because I left Quito so early, I had a full day on Saturday to explore Puerto Ayora and there was only one place to start, the Darwin Research Center, which serves as the visitor center for the entire archipelago. They have some informative exhibits, a tortoise rescue center, and in a macabre turn, the taxidermied corpse of Lonesome George, the last of the Pinta Galapagos turtles, who survived as the last of his species for fourty years of his hundred and thirty year old life. Afterwards I headed back to town to check out which day tours were available for the following day. Brief side note on handling the islands: I decided to do the Galapagos independently, as opposed to hoping on a multi-day cruise because I generally fare pretty poorly on boats and didn't want to have the whole trip ruined if I wasn't able to bare the seas, plus doing it on your own is a much more cost effective way to go. That meant that I had to organize all of my own activities while there, which meant jumping from agency to agency to figure out what I could do and to make sure I was getting the best deal. Back to reality: After I scoped out my options, I made my way to Tortuga Bay, an enormous white sand beach a thirty minute walk from town, which had a bunch of marine iguanas (literally iguanas that spend a significant portion of their life swimming in the ocean, see above), some turtle egg nests, and a surfing competition. Well I guess not every one comes to the Galapagos for the nature. That night was spent taking a lap around the small town, but I mostly kept it low key, which is a common thread on the islands. There aren't really many night time activities and it's pretty expensive here to go out and grab a drink, as you're paying 2-3x what you pay on the mainland for stuff in general. Also I was pretty exhausted at the end of each day from doing things in the heat, as it was like 85 degrees with 100% humidity every day and most activities require an early start to get the best seas/tides, so I was rarely up past 10pm. The highlight of Santa Cruz, however, was to be my day trip on Sunday to Pinzon Island. I'm not scuba certified, so a snorkel trip was my next best option to see the varied marine life and, boy, was I not disappointed. Before we even got to Pinzon, we stopped at La Fe, a beach on Santa Cruz, where we saw a green sea turtle, 3 foot black tipped reef sharks, a small sting ray, a moray eel and countless fish. Aftering pulling up the anchor, we next headed towards Roca Sin Nombre aka the Rock Without a Name (they weren't very creative with that one were they?), where we did a drive by viewing of some sea lions and blue footed boobies (get your head out of the dirt), before quickly jumping in the water to try and swim (we failed) with a group of dolphins we spotted on our way to Pinzon. At Pinzon we had two separate spots where we snorkelled that were sandwiched around lunch, which was some fresh caught yellow fin tuna steaks. At the first spot, we swam with sea lions, saw a bunch more beautiful tropical fish (parrotfish, king angelfish, others I couldn't identify), but the highlight was definitely observing a 15 foot manta ray, majestically swimming around about 20 feet below the surface. The second spot was all about baby sea lions, which were extremely playful and fearless, as they swam circles around us. The entire day was awesome. It was far and away the best snorkeling I've ever done and all of my anti-seasickness precautions worked, though it left me with a wicked sunburn in the silhouette of the life jacket I was wearing. I swear I was wearing sunscreen, but the sun here is like something out of Spinal Tap, as the UV index literally goes up to 11. That night was spent nursing the burn and reading before an early wakeup the next morning for my boat to Isabella, the largest of the Galapagos Islands.