Nathan's Insights

Saturday 21 December 2024
Highlights: Charles Darwin Research Station

It was time to farewell the Galapagos Islands. Today we were squeezing in a visit to Charles Darwin Research Station as we missed that on our first day in the Galapagos.

That meant an extra early start with breakfast scheduled at 6.00 am meaning a much earlier start to shower and pack everything up. At 6.40 am we met on the main deck, double-checked we had everything, said goodbye to the crew and boarded a zodiac for the short ride to Santa Cruz Island landing.

We arrived early at the Charles Darwin Research Station before everything had opened but that let us explore the grounds. We found straddle-back tortoises that the Research Station are using to breed the population back to a more sustainable number. Now that rats have been eliminated from several key islands the tortoise numbers in the wild should start rising again and one day this breeding program won’t be needed.

We got to see the remains of Lonesome George a male Pinta Island tortoise and the last known individual that died in 2012. Whalers had destroyed all Pinta Island tortoises but they somehow missed George. Unfortunately, he was the last of the Pinta Island tortoises and a reminder of how humankind can cause so many extinctions. 

At 8.00 am the main building opened so we could learn more about the station and its essential mission.

We then left the Station and caught our private bus to take us to the other side of Santa Cruz Island. The 45-minute ride took as though many microclimates. One moment it was misty and green, the next dry and desert-like. The ride summed up the unique qualities of the Galapagos that have caused the unique wildlife.

On arrival, we transferred to a ferry to take us to Balta Island. Once on Baltra Island, we took a public bus to the airport. Baltra is effectively an airport island and this is the only way to get to the airport.

At the airport, we checked into our flight (see flight review) and said goodbye to our guide for the last week the ever-informative and passionate Omar. 

We arrived at Quito airport after 4 pm, our bags made it and our transfer back to the Hilton Colon Hotel took 40 minutes. Erin and I went out for dinner after a brief stop in the Hotel Executive Lounge. We started going through our highlights for this trip, there were just so many every single day since leaving Australia 23 days ago.