Day 16 - Tortoises!

Today we took a short drive from the hotel to the El Manzanillo Ranch, a family run farm and tortoise reserve. When we arrived, we were given rubber boots to change into to walk about the ranch. As a precaution, Robby sprayed our boots with repellant to keep the red fire ants from climbing up our boots. The fire ants are not native to the area, but are here now.

El Manzanillo Ranch

Deigo and Tomarah , our naturalists, took us on a walking tour of the ranch. We saw many tortoises along the road as we approached, but it did not take long for us to walk up close to many tortoises!

These are the famous Galapagos Giant Tortoise, with the Archipelago itself being named after them (Galapágo is an old Spanish word for tortoise). These giant tortoises can live over 100 years and weigh up to 500 pounds.

Our naturalist had is quietly walk behind this tortoise for a photo. If you are too fast or noisy, they will retreat into their shell.

Tomarah explained the differences between male and female tortoise. Males have a longer tail and the lower shell is curved inward for mating. The tortoise at the ranch are considered domed shell tortoise. The highlands , where the ranch is located, is like a rainforest. Lush and green with plenty of food for the tortoise to eat.

The tortoise are protected and have the protections in place. They are allowed to go where ever they want. The ranch has fencing to keep the cows and horses in, but the fence must allow the tortoise to walk underneath to get around. It was quite a site to see cows and tortoise in the same field!

The ranch is supported by the Charles Darwin Foundation. They have a gift shop where we were able to pick up a few souvenirs. The proceeds go to help preservation of the tortoises. They also had a lunch area where we had a chance to sample the “Galapagos Moonshine”, made from sugar cane. It was not to my liking.

We returned to the Royal Palm Hotel for lunch. Here we got a cooking class on how to make the local ceviche. We each had our own tray set up with all the ingredients. This was a shrimp ceviche, so the shrimp was precooked. we added the lime juice and other ingredients and made our own starter for lunch. It was delicious.

We had a couple of hours until we left for our next outing, so we returned to our room to relax. We were surprised to find a bouquet of flowers and chocolate covered strawberries in our room. There was also a card signed by all the staff wishing Sandy a Happy Birthday. What a nice surprise!

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Make it stand out

Our next outing was to the town of Puerto Ayora, the largest town in the Galapagos Islands. It is also the home of the Charles Darwin Research Station. The research station is a biological research facility operated by the Charles Darwin Foundation. Its central mission is to conduct scientific research and conservation efforts to protect the unique ecosystems of the Galápagos Islands.

Our naturalist guides provided a tour of the facility and answered any questions we had.

The station is crucial to the survival of many native and endemic species, including the iconic Galápagos giant tortoise. It operates a successful tortoise breeding and rearing program that has released thousands of young tortoises back into the wild since the 1970s. They have pens for each type of tortoise. Eggs are collected from various areas and are incubated until they hatch. Each tortoise is numbered and color coded by area it came from. They are kept until they reach three years old. At this age they are old enough to not have any natural predators and are returned to the area they came from.

Lonesome George

We also got to see Lonesome George. Lonesome George was the last known Pinta Island giant tortoise, who lived at the Charles Darwin Research Station for four decades and became a global symbol of conservation. After his death in 2012, his preserved body was returned to the station on Santa Cruz Island and is now a central exhibit for visitors. it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.

After our visit to the Research Station, we had some free time to enjoy the town of Puerto Ayora. This gave us plenty of opportunities to purchase more souvenirs.

Streets of Puerto Ayroa.

Back at the Royal Palm Hotel, we had dinner, then retired for the night to pack our bags to be ready to leave tomorrow.