The highlands of Santa Cruz

We went up int the highlands of Santa Cruz which was like a different world from the rest of the Galapagos we had visited. This time of year, the lowlands of the islands are very dry and don´t get much rain at all. However, because of the currents, the highlands get a lot of garũa - this is like a light mist that is constantly all over these lands. This causes everything to be incredibly green and wet this time of the year. In our winter, the lowlands of the islands have their rainy season and so are much more lush and these highlands are very dry at those times. This is all determined because of the currents that flow here. Cool, eh!?



We were able to see many tortoises living naturally in the wild here. It was amazing! They were all over these fields and walking around, sleeping, eating and ... well, that´s about the activites that a tortoise is involved in. We saw one tortoise that was walking past a barbed wire fence. The fence is built so that it´s supposed to be high enough so that the tortoises can cross safely underneath, but one section of the fence was much too low. This large tortoise kept getting caught in the wire and made very sad noises. A few of us were able to lift up the wire so that the tortoise could safely cross.

This is a bed that these tortoises make to sleep. This one has its head pretty well hidden so that he can sleep. These beds are often reused by other tortoises later on.

We also explored lava tubes (caves) in these highlands. These were made when lava was flowing to create the islands. The outside of a lava flow would become cool and harden, but the center would continue to flow. What was created are these great caves. Monica told us that an owl lives in them much of the time, but we were not able to see it this time.

We also went to see these huge pit craters even higher in the highlands. You can see all of the layers of land formation due to volcanic eruptions. These huge craters were formed because of the land collapsing above the lava tubes. It forms a beautiful site to see!