Sunday, April 25, 2011:
Today is our first day off of the boat for a whole day. Most of us still feel like we’re still moving from the rocking water the past 4 days. The main event for today was to go see the Darwin center and see the giant tortoises.
Our first stop was to see “Tortoises in the wild.” We went to someone’s land that they turned into a tourist attraction thanks to the chance of tortoises living on their land. They fenced it in, put in a café and souvenir shop, and it was a tourist hit. Anyway, we went on a short walk where we saw a gain tortoise just laying in the water. Of what I understand they basically just do this all the time… for 100 years or more. Unfortunately, due to the heat that day, we only saw one in the wild because the others were hiding in the shade where we couldn’t see them. Afterward, Andres (or “Suave” or our new name for him “under cover gringo”) gave his talk about the tortoises. Next to him were large tortoise shells that had been left after they died. He then encouraged me to get into it, and to my surprise, they lifted me up! I was a Super Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle!!! My dream had finally come true. I can die happy now.
Soon after that, we were finished there and made our way to a lava cave. This is a tunnel that was formed by flowing magma from a volcano. It was about 30 feet high in the beginning and at one point was about 3 feet high. People had to climb on their hands and feet to get through; I didn’t go through that part though. Most of the group just went back to the bus and waited for the 4 people that went all the way through. I would have normally done it, but at that point, I only had 1 more clean pair of cloths and was relying on my bathing suit to get me another day or two.
After the lava tunnel, we came back into the main town in Santa Cruz Island. Right down the road was the Charles Darwin center where they had a few turtle shells of different kinds, maps, and a model of the turtle eggs. Andres gave an informational talk in which he informed us that there were 11 different species of giant turtles – one that will be extinct soon because there is only one left of its kind. They call him “Lonely George.” Once he dies, there will only be 10 species of giant turtles. Obviously, this is why he is called Lonely George. They tried mating him with other turtles, but his seed wouldn’t stick.
After a brief history of Lonely George, we finally got to go see him. We got to his pen and I was surprised at two things. The first is that there were 3 giant turtles. I didn’t know which one was Lonely George or if they were all Lonely George. The second is that they were all humping each other. I guess 175 years without a compatible female mate, and things really get lonely… really lonely. It was funny because one was just dominating the other two and they didn’t pay any attention to us. Also, there were no fences between us and the tortoises – got to love Ecuador! After about 10 minutes of giant tortoise sex, we were ready to leave.
Afterward, we separated from Andres because it was time for his break and we rested until dinner. After dinner, we didn’t do much. Some people casually drank on the hammocks at the hostel, but I felt it would just be a little inappropriate to drink on Easter… the night ended smoothly talking with my beautiful girl friend J
Ciao,
Michael
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