January 24th, Tortoise Country

As has been my custom on this trip, I headed out before breakfast to shoot some bird photos. I found some friendly finches once again, and had some great views of a Galapagos Flycatcher.

Small Tree Finch eating an insect

Large Ground Finch

Yellow Warbler feeding

Galapagos Flycatcher

After breakfast, we headed out in our bus back up to the farming area at mid elevation on Isla Santa Cruz. We stopped first at a lava tube, and we were able to pass through about 600m before climbing out the other side. The tube varied in height from about 2 feet (a tight squeeze on our tummies) to over 30 feet and was well lit along the way.

The lights allowed for some opportunistic ferns to grow over 200 meters from the entrance, which amazed all of us. Once we came out of the tube, we were greeted by a couple of giant tortoises near our bus. The farmland in this area is full of dome shaped tortoises, and the farmers allow them to roam freely across the landscape by raising the lowest section of barbed wire so that the tortoises can pass through. Our guide heard a low grunting noise and brought us over to another field where we were lucky enough to see two tortoises mating, which is supposedly a rare sight.

The tour continued at a farm devoted to tortoises and we saw some real giants, some of whom were easily 100 years old and nearly three feet tall.

After lunch, we packed up and hopped on a private boat that would take us to the main hub of our activities for the remainder of the trip on Isabella Island. Hearing that it was going to be an inter island boat ride, I was expecting something along the lines of the catamaran ferry boats that we rode in Greece. As it turned out, the boat wasn't all that much bigger than my dads fishing boat, and the 28 or so passengers was well over the stated capacity of 20 for the boat.

The ocean was pretty rough, throwing our little boat around and splashing the people in the back. After a backbreaking two and a half hours, we finally pulled into port, right as Micky was about to pass out and leave his lunch on board. Luckily, his green pallor revived itself when we neared the shore of Isabella island and pulled into calmer waters. The town of Puerto Villamil is much smaller and more mellow than Porto Ayora, and we arrived at our stunning beach front hotel in a few minutes. Once again, we are very spoiled on this trip and we all agree that between this and Yachana, these are the nicest accommodations of any field bio trip. Definitely not roughing it by any means. We checked into the hotel and cruised over to check out the town. After walking two blocks, we had seen most of it, so we headed out to the pier, where a nice marine iguana was sunbathing and we watched a frigate bird harass a lava gull for his dinner.

Magnificent Frigatebird juvenile

The beaches here are very nice and full of local kids and surfers. But things are definitely not crowded, as there are less than 3000 people living on the island, the majority of which are on the farms at higher elevation.

Not a bad base camp for the next few days! Did I mention, these are views from the hotel!