Galapagos Islands
Galapagos, Santa Cruz Island
With an area of 986 sq km, this is the second largest island in the archipelago. A road crosses Santa Cruz from north to south and gives the visitor the easiest opportunity of seeing some of the highland interior of the island. The highest point is Cerro Crocker (864m).
The main town is Puerto Ayora, where most visitors either stay while arranging a boat or anchor sometime during their cruise in the famous harbor of Academy Bay. In addition to the tourist facilities, there are about 10 national-park visitor sites.
Puerto Ayora
This town is on the central island of Santa Cruz, and it is where most visitors stay and visit. All the tour boats visit Puerto Ayora, anchoring in Academy Bay. Puerto Ayora has grown considerably over the last few years, and there are a lot more services available: film stores, pharmacies, restaurants, hotels, shops, a modern bank, internet cafes, inexpensive international telephone services and taxis.
About a 20-minute walk by road northeast of Puerto Ayora, the Charles Darwin Research Station can also be reached by dry landing from Academy Bay. It contains a national-park information center. Several of the 11 remaining subspecies of tortoise can be seen here. Lonesome George, the only surviving member of the Isla Pinta subspecies, is also here and can be viewed from the boardwalk.
Southwest of Puerto Ayora, a 3km trail takes you to Turtle Bay, where you'll find a very fine white sand beach and a spit of land providing protected swimming. There are sharks, marine iguanas and a variety of water birds - including pelicans and the occasional flamingo. There are also mangroves.
Several sites of interest in the Highlands of Santa Cruz can be reached from the trans-island road. The underground tunnels are more than a kilometer in length and were formed by the solidifying of the outside skin of a molten lava flow. When the lava flow ceased, the molten lava inside the flow kept going, emptying out of the solidified skin and thus leaving tunnels. continues...
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Santa Cruz Island
North of Bellavista is the national-park land known as the highlands. A footpath from Bellavista...
