Galapagos (3)

And so our time on the Legend came to an end, and we said goodbye to our new friends, including Elizabeth and Ryan who were on their honeymoon and of course Herb and Carolyn. The good thing for us was that although most people were making their way back home or to the mainland, we had opted to stay on the main island, Santa Cruz for a few more nights. Santa Cruz, though inhabited, still has areas of conservation and much wildlife to see, so we relished a little more time to spend in this wonderful environment.
Among the places of interest were the Charles Darwin station, a centre of conservation where there is another tortoise sanctuary and home to the famous 'Lonesome George', the last of a subspecies of tortoise from one of the islands that so far has refused to mate. So he has his own camp in the preserve, and two females to keep him company, just in case he feels otherwise inclined..
Another highlight was visiting a wonderfully pristine beach called Tortuga bay, it was sold to us as a half an hour walk from where we were staying, and a chance to see some turtles swimming. After a slow start to the day we took the trip over there, on what was more like an hour just to get to the brink of the bay, then an additional twenty minutes of carrying the buggy (bad bad decision), baby and accompanying paraphernalia across soft white sand to the safer, more sheltered beach. This wouldn't have been too much of an issue only we had to be back to the park entrance by 6pm, leaving us just less than an hour to enjoy the beauty of the place. A veritable sprint back to the gates meant we made it back with 10 minutes to spare, shame the afternoon was rushed but was still worth it to see one of the best beaches in the Galapagos.
Oh, how nice to have breakfast with a couple of marine iguanas sunning themselves by their feet, to hear the distant gaffaw of sea lions from your bed at night. We shall definitely miss this.
Ari brought Richard Dawkins' book 'The Ancestor's Tale' (the story of the evolution of man going back through time) with him which we've both been reading while we've been here, and it really helps bring home the sense of prehistory the place has, and the mere blip in time that our own existence is, and for that matter our whole existence as a species compared with the goings on of the volcanic islands, the iguanas, the tortoises to name but a few. Thoughtful musings indeed.