Galapagos Part 4
In the afternoon we went to the Charles Darwin reseach centre, where they have hundreds of baby tortoises looking after them before they are old enough when they release them back into the wild.
They also have Lonely George, who is the last of his species of tortoises as scientists took the last of the tortoises off his island but left him as he was too young. anyway now hes an old man and there is a $10000 reward if anyone can find him a partener who was maybe taken to a zoo in another country or something. He does have 2 girlfriends living with him and they are hoping he will breed with them as although not exactly the same they are the closests in genetics. Theres another tortoise called Diego as he was living in a zoo in San Diego, but when they started trying to repopulate his island and there were hardly any left, they found him and bought him back to help to the breeding program.
On Saturday caught a taxi-boat round the headland to another little beach which we had all to our selves!
In the afternoon we had our bay tour. We got on a boat with about 12 Americas and 2 guys from Puerto Rico. We went to a rocky islet where there were sea lions on the rocks, where we were given snorkles. Was so lovely could see really colourful fish, and a couple of times the sea lions swam right amoungst us and was in a foot of it. Its amazing how graceful they are underwater.
Then we went for a walk and could see a white fin shark in a pool of water. Then went for what the guide told the American was a "strenous hike" but i think thats just as they were a bit old, anyway we managed to do it in flip flops and really wasnt that long, and at the end was a lovely pool of water that you could swim in.
Sunday we went to a beach called the Galapatero on the other side of the island. There was a lake behind the beach which had a flamingo in. Lots of Pelicans kept diving into the sea around me to catch fish.