GALAPAGOS DAY 4 - SANTA CRUZ ISLAND (22/05/09)
Our first outing of the day was to the Charles Darwin Research centre. The primary function of the centre is conservation with a strong emphasis on Giant Tortoise breeding programs. The nursery section is home to dozens of baby tortoises.
These little ones kept trying unsuccessfully to climb the rocks before ending up on their backs. Luckily one of the volunteers in the centre had the job of frequently righting the unfortunate individuals.
After the nurseries we visited the enclosure of adult females. Most of the adults at the centre are being treated for dangerous parasites which if left in the wild could wipe out a whole sub-species.
This female liked the look of Adam. However as it turned out it was just before feeding time and she was expecting to be fed - women are all the same.
The name being something of a give away we were expecting them to be large, but both of us were suprised, they were HUGE!
Feeding time in the male enclosure. Despite the enormous pile of greenery they were constantly posturing at each other over the best spot on the feeding platform.
We were over the moon to be able to get this close to the Giant Tortoises. The guide gave us a couple of hours to spend shopping in Puerto Ayora but we went back to spend more time with the tortoises.
This slightly smaller male got pushed away from the feeding platform by the larger males. Lucky for him Liz decided to befriend him and spent at least an hour talking to him. Eventually Liz put her sunglasses on to protect from the glare of the sun and realised that it wasn´t Adam.
You have to agree - the resemblance is uncanny.
This is Lonesome George about to chase this female into the water. Lonesome George is the rarest animal in the world - there is just him left of his entire species. Whilst attempts to mate him with females of closely related species have been successful, so far all the eggs laid have been infertile. However at 79 years old he still has plenty of time - Giant Tortoises have been recorded living up to 175 years!
Potentially we could have witnessed the first successfull breeding of Lonesome George, unfortunately she wasn´t in the mood and he was too slow.
Also at the Charles Darwin centre were these land iguanas. The bright yellow and orange colouration denote that they are ready to mate.
One of the famous Galapagos finches. Studying the shape of the beaks of finches from different islands helped Charles Darwin form his theory of evolution. 
The passion flower is an introduced species considered a pest and on the list of species for eradication programs. Despite that the flowers are still very pretty.
Our first view of a wild Giant Tortoise in the highlands of Santa Cruz island. This is a female.
This male was licking his lips after eating the tasty lush grass.
Whilst in general they ignored us after about five minutes this one ambled off up the path for a bit of piece and quiet. Interestingly all the paths in this section of National Park are not man made but tortoise made.
To grow this large on a food stuff as poor as grass requires eating almost constantly.
They have no teeth just a horny beak similar to that of a bird.
After seeing the Giant Tortoises we went to visit a giant lava tube. This is the entrance.
Just inside someone had found these old Giant Tortoise bones. At some point a Giant Tortoise had ventured into the lava tube and, unable to climb out, rather sadly starved to death.
There was no way this one was starving to death!
The lava tube was formed when an enormous lava flow cooled on the outside forming the walls but stayed sufficiently hot in the centre for the liquid rock to run away leaving a hollow tube. You can see the high metal content of the lava from the metallic roof and the rust on the walls.
Towards the middle of the tube the ceiling got very low, at one point we had to crawl getting quite mucky in the process.
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