Pictures from our tenth day on the Galápagos islands, visiting the Charles Darwin Station and the highlands.
Santa Cruz harbour
Santa Cruz main street
Santa Cruz tourist shopping
Santa Cruz decaying infrastructure
Alex in Santa Cruz
Pelican in Santa Cruz
Giant turtles at the Charles Darwin Station
Munch munch munch
They are well fed at the Charles Darwin Station
Hood Island tortoise (i.e. from Española island)
This population got restarted from 3 males and 11 females; the saddle is an adaptation to dry islands with hard to reach vegetation
Tortoise feet
Love the toe nails
Not sure why some seem to have orange-pink lower necks and faces?
This one has a near total pink head
Baby tortoises at the Charles Darwin Station in Santa Cruz
It appears that the breeding program is working!
Tiny tortoises
They are still giant tortoises, of course!
There's no escape
Baby tortoises must stay!
Back in Santa Cruz: a water transport
On the Galápagos islands, water is always hard to get
Lichen on trees near Los Gemelos
The trees up here are often Scalesia pedunculata
Alex and his camera
Yay for a hat!
Los Gemelos are two craters
Down in the crater there's a lot of invasive blackberry
Scalesia trees are endemic to the Galápagos
Hard to believe but these trees are related to sunflowers (Heliantheae)
Plants growing on other plants
Epiphytes everywhere in the green zone further up the island
The other crater up here
As you can see we're in the Scalesia zone (200–400m)
Claudia with borrowed boots
Boots because of the fire ants. Apparently they like the tortoise poop.
Giant tortoise relaxing in the pools
Up here, there are multiple pools for the tortoises, and a ton of tourists
Don't disturb the tortoises
They are really big.
Like, GIANT tortoises!
Happy happy
Claudia with a green drink, Alex with dessert
And with that, another day ends
Sunset!
