Our last full day of the cruise was spent mostly on dry land. No Galápagos visit would be complete without seeing the giant tortoises.

There are statues and streets in Darwin’s honor around the area. Ecuador is doing a very good job in regards to protecting their National Park and the giant tortoises. We toured the visitors center where they hatch the tortoise eggs collected from the islands.

Each batch of eggs is marked with a color to indicate which island it came from. The program began in 1970 when the last 14 remaining tortoises were rescued from the island of Espanola. The program has restored that population to over 1,000 individuals today.

After our morning visit to the Research Station, we headed up into the Santa Cruz Highlands. The flora changed from cactus to lush green fields and forests.

We walked through the fields and counted many tortoises.

Back onboard the Evolution we had a farewell dinner of lobster and a champagne toast for our wonderful crew.