Lonesome George

The Galapagos is known for Darwin. But that all happened in the past. Please note that I am NOT downplaying his role in the discovery of natural selection theories (hey, I was a biochem major and respect him!).

Nonetheless, its most famous CURRENT resident must be this guy over here:

Lonesome George. As you can see, he's quite shy.He can be found at the Charles Darwin Research Station on Santa Cruz, one of the 2 most inhabited islands in the Galapagos.Poor George. He's the last remaining survivor of the Pinta Island tortoise species. At least 50 years old. No friends. No family. No mating buddy. He doesn't seem too happy about his life situation. A depressing look. And behavior too....he hardly moves.

(Granted I probably won't be the sole human being left on earth, but there's a good chance that I'd be living a similar lifestyle when I turn 50. With a fat ass comparable to George's too! How truly sad.)

Although there is only one George, there are a bunch of other Galapagos giant tortoises at the center. Including pools with the cutest babies, all segmented according to size/age. For some reason, I forgot to take their photos. So instead, here's a close up of a mature one:

I thought their shells were kinda cool:The center had various lizards as well, but I'll get to those reptiles another time.

We spent one day on Santa Cruz, starting with the above-mentioned research station.

From there, we had a couple of hours to walk around the small town of Puerto Ayora. Not the most happening place, believe me. A stretch of road full of tourist shops, cafes, restaurants, and dive shops. And some pelicans (plus a stray boobie!) waiting for scraps of fish:

I had a great down-time though. Sipping semi-good coffee (i.e.. better than sailboat coffee), walking into the gift shops with tons of funny boobie slogans on t-shirts (would make entertaining gifts for guys), indulging in popsicles (when was the last time I had one?!), and chatting with some of the locals.

I still can't believe this...but guess what the topic of conversation was?! Erika Sawajiri and her drama. Yup, "1 Liter of Tears". How odd, right?!?!?! Yes, it was a very moving drama (from start to finish, I was totally glued to my computer screen). Even Quito would be surprising... But on the Galapagos?!?!?! Well, then again, the Iranians did like "Oshin"... Japanese dramas do certainly seem to get around, huh.

Anyways, after the short hiatus, we boarded a local bus and headed towards the hills where we walked through one of the natural tortoise sanctuaries (with some birds as well).
It finally dawned on me then that my mental equation of tortoises = sea turtles was wrong. Tortoises don't swim and live in the ocean; they live in the grassland. Yes, it took me this long.

And so, back to the sailboat. The pier at sunset:

At this point, I debated whether or not to return to this place after my cruise. Wanted some lazy time on land at a small town (with supposedly a gorgeous beach a km walk away) and a chance to do some introductory dives. My cruise mates had done it before boarding the ship, and they gave some great recommendations. Lets see what happens with my mind and body over the next few days at sea...