The group (IL, Bristol Rose, Anthem & Jackster) did a tour of the island today in a minibus with a national park guide to explain what we were seeing. The trip was arranged through the company Sharksky, Manolo and Tina are a husband and wife team who run the operation. The speak perfect English and couldn't have been more helpful.
We got picked up at 9am. The first stop was El Progresso, a village and the site of the first colonists to set up a sugar mill on the island. The accounts report that Herr Cobos was a brilliant business man and a tyrant. It says a lot when you're best friend stabs you in the back. His legacy today is the ruins of his house, some iron wheels left from the sugar mill and many species of plant introduced from the mainland. We were only a few hundred metres above sea level and 5 miles inland but the temperature was cooler.
History over it was on to natural history and a visit to the only freshwater lake in the Galapagos. El Junco is an extinct volcanic crater that collects rainwater and keeps it due to impermeable rocks. It's the reservoir for the town, a bath for the frigate birds (they don't have oil in their feathers like other seabirds so can't touch seawater and be able take off again), home of the Galapagos duck and covered by clouds most of the time. the clouds roll in from the Pacific cooling the air. It was farily chilly. With the ferns and short grass it reminded us of moorland at home. San Cristobal is the 2nd oldest island in the group and covered with lush vegetation. We walked up to the rim and around although there wasn't much to see except clouds today.
Onward with the tour towards the east side of the island and the Tortoise breeding centre. It's one of the things these islands are famous for. Each island has its own individual specie and all are threatened with extinction due to man. First they were collected by visiting ships as a source of fresh meat on long voyages. Nowadays the few left lay their 12-15 eggs but the eggs are vulnerable to rats brought here by ships and the hatchlings to feral cats, again not indigenous, for the first five yearts. The breeding centre collects the eggs and incubate them indoors and the young are raised in protected cages until they are five years old and can be released back into the wild. What is particularly good about this centre is it is a 26 hectare site with tortoises roaming around and you can get close to them. The oldest one here is 70.
I always thought tortoises were slow yet see them at full speed and it's impressive for something so large and prehistoric looking.
Absorbing so much information is hungry work so fortunately the next item on the agenda was lunch at a hill station farm. And sumptious it was too, a platter of locally grown fruit, chicken with a cacophony local vegetables, fresh fruit juice and scrummy ic ecream. A feast.
Our post lunch activity was a visit to Puerto Chino beach on the east coast. A pleasant 10 minute walk along a newly laid path through the bush. The cactus trees are huge. It was a small beach with big biting flies. We could have stayed an hour and swum, as we live on the sea it's not quite a priority, so we opted not to be bitten and turned for home.
It was a jolly day out although one essentual element was missing for me. David had had to stay on board for the morning. The boat we had anchored in front of was leaving and the way we were lying we might have swung over their chain. Yachtie etiquette is for the second arriving boat to move out of the way of the first. He'd had a happy day messing about on Jackster, lunch in town and an hour in the hardware shop buying fan belts.
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