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After a very long sleep and lie-in (we had to be at Joybe Tours for 10am) we all woke up a little rosy from the day before and started packing for the cruise. We had a continental breakfast before leaving to visit Santa Rosa, a town in the centre if Santa Cruz with a tortoise sanctuary. We walked past loads of different sized tortoises, the heaviest were around 200 kilos and the oldest 120 years. The males are bigger in general and the youngest one we saw was 15 years. They generally weren't fazed by people although if we went too close they would snort and hide inside their shells (there is a 2 meter rule on all of Galápagos- you aren't supposed to go closer than this to any of the wildlife). The difference between tortoises and turtles is that turtles swim and tortoises don't. We saw some lava caves and walked inside one of them, although didn't crawl through the tiny hole possibly because our guide was a little on the plump side and would have to accompany us. After the walk we had coffee and took photos inside old tortoise shells (they are really heavy to move!). On leaving the sanctuary there was a tortoise walking towards us in the middle of the road so we had to wait a few minutes for it to move across. This was the most active we'd seen one!
Back at Puerto Ayora we bought snacks ready for our 5 day cruise. We were taken to our boat on a dingy, nervously waiting to see which was ours and hoping it wasn't one of the tiny old looking sail boats. We were pleasantly surprised by our red boat named 'Encantada', even though it was smaller than some of the cruise ships it looked nice enough and was kept very clean and tidy. Each cabin has a bunk bed for two people and a bathroom and wardrobe. There isn't much room inside (you could sit on the toilet and have a shower) but we had everything we needed. There are 12 of us on our boat, from Madrid, Holland, Chicago and Quebec. We are amongst the youngest although the Canadian girls are still studying so must be a similar age. We were told the rules of the boat, such as one shower per person per day, dinner time when the bell rings, no sand on board etc. This was followed by out first delicious meal of fresh tuna with warm red cabbage and salad.
In the afternoon we went to the Charles Darwin research centre. We had been expecting a museum type thing but it was actually more of a wildlife sanctuary. We had a knowledgeable guide, Juan, who told us (amongst other facts) some of the following:
The Galápagos Islands became a national park in 1959, which is now run 100% by Ecuadorians. Before this date people took the tortoises for all over the world. The size of the tortoises depends on the vegetation on different islands, and as they have all evolved at different times on different islands there are a variety of types. The largest ones (weighing up to 200 kilos) come from the larger islands as there is more to eat whilst the smaller ones come from the smaller islands depending on the type of vegetation. The Seychelles is the only other place in the world you can see large tortoises? Galápagos actually means saddle back, which makes sense from looking at the smaller tortoises (up to 60 kilos) as their shells are turned up at the front.
Back on the boat we were given a warm welcome by the captain and were introduced to different members of the crew. The wise words of the captain were to: "open your mind, open your ears, open your heart". For dinner Javier the barman put his tucks on for dinner and wears a bow tie for lunch.
We were the last ones standing (til 9.15pm !) playing cards. Early night ready for walking and snorkelling tomorrow. We had a long journey of 10 - 11 hours on the boat to Genovesa Island.
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