We awoke bright and early for John's birthday this morning and went downstairs for breakfast. When he got downstairs, he was greeted by everyone singing Happy Birthday, so we all joined in. It was really nice of everyone to make him feel special on his birthday. I felt a little bad as we haven't spent any time apart yet, so I couldn't get him a birthday card. However, I did make a postcard into a card, so he was happy with that. We had sailed overnight from Isabella Island to get back to Santa Cruz Island, where we will spend the day. We are going to visit some tortoises living in the wild around the island. 

The Highlands of Santa Cruz

As Santa Cruz Island has good populations of giant tortoises, there is no active breeding programmes on this island . The tortoises that we are heading to see today are in the highlands on the island. These particular ones we are going to see are amongst the largest giant tortoises in the world. Some of them are likely to be up to 100 years old or perhaps even older. We got a dinghy to the shore and then we had a minibus take us to the highlands, which was about a 45 minute journey. While we were travelling there, we saw lots of wild tortoises in the fields and some at the side of the road. At first, the weather seemed to be pretty sunny, however, when we got to the farm where the tortoises were, it started to rain a little. Never mind, the weather wasn't going to put a dampener on John's birthday. When we walked through, Sol said that we all had to put on wellies as the highlands ground was going to be really wet and muddy. Today as we're going to the beach after the highlands, John dressed in his swim shorts and a black vest top. He was really colour co-ordinated today with a black vest and black and white shorts. To top it off and complete his catwalk debut, he had to wear some lovely knee high black wellies! As soon as he put on the wellies, I was in hysterics and couldn't control my laughter. It was so funny to see him in a vest, shorts and wellies. You'd have to see the pictures to see what I mean. When I was giggling, this started everyone off and they were all giggling too. I thought this was so good that it happened to be John's birthday today of all days. I made him and Mark stand together for some picture of them in their wellies, although John looked the funniest in his! Once John modelled his outfit on the catwalk, we were ready to go in to the farm where the tortoises are . 

We walked into the entrance, which was actually some farm land owned by someone. They would normally charge an entrance fee to get in, however, ours was included in the price we paid for our cruise. It was still miserable and rain was pouring down upon us, but we didn't let it put a dampener on John's birthday. There was an indoor section that contained two skeleton shells of some tortoises and Sol told us about those. John and Mark thought it would be funny to pick them up at first, then they decided to climb inside the tortoise shells and become ninja turtles for the morning! They both got inside the shells and tried to stand up with this heavy weight attached to themselves. The shells are quite heavy, so no wonder tortoises move so slowly! I got a video of John and Mark climbing in and out of them, see below. Again we were all in hysterics and it really brightened up everyone's day. They looked like they could have been a real tortoise... After their fun being a tortoise, they struggled to get out of the shells, but once out, we were off to see the real thing . 

Out in the fields, we spotted our first tortoise, it was a big one. It was a bit further away from us, so we all stood our distance while Sol talked about them. We tried not to scare it off so that we could all get some pictures with it. When some people started walking towards it, the head started to go inside it's shell. Sol told us to go around the back of it so as not to scare it, when we did that, it wasn't too scared to we approached it cautiously and were able to get a picture from behind it. On doing so, I noticed a big dent in the shell on the back of the tortoise. I asked Sol about this, and she said it was probably damaged when the tortoise was moving locations and perhaps from lava rock falling on to the shell, but it didn't damage the tortoise inside. John came and joined me and we got a picture of us and the tortoise together- ah how cute I hear you say! I think John gets fed up with all the pictures I take, but it's our year out, so I want as many memories from it as possible . We carried on walking round and seeing other tortoises about, most of them were pretty large, but we did spot a huge one slowly moving around. There was a little rock pool of water so there were a few of them all congregated around this area. They look so prehistoric, almost like dinosaurs in some respects, I'd imagine they've been around nearly as long as them too. It was good to see the tortoise in the wild and to know that the populations on this island are good. We stayed there for a while and afterwards we got to look around the shop selling all sorts of Galápagos souvenirs, then it was time to head off for our next trip to some beach the other side of the island. 

The Lava Tunnels

Before heading to the beach at the other side of the island, we had time to visit some lava tunnels that have formed due to the lava flow melting on the outside of a volcano. These were pretty impressive tunnels and were actually quite long. We had to go down some steps to get inside the tunnels, and once inside them, they were actually quite eerie. I was at the back of the group, so when I looked back, it was pitch black. I was taking some pictures, but soon sped up as I was the last one left behind in the tunnels. The older ladies in our group couldn't make it into the tunnels, so they stayed at the top of the steps, waiting for people to re-appear. I felt a bit sorry for them, but at least they made it out here to see the tortoises .

We were not returning back to the boat until later this afternoon, so we had our minibus take us to the other side of the island to some beach which I can't remember the name of! The original itinerary stated we were going to visit tortuga bay, but as it's a longer walk and some of the older ladies came with us, Sol gave us a choice to either go to tortuga beach, or one the other side of the island which was a shorter walk. We chose to go to the one the other side so they could all come along. A couple of the older ladies haven't been out on many of the hiking activities as its a bit difficult for them, so we wanted them to come along for the last trip out. It was to take an hour and a half to drive to the other side of the island, so I fell asleep on the journey and I think some of the others did too. When we got there, we walked along a long pathway and eventually came to a beach with some sort of campsite where locals were camping. We walked along the beach, then on the other side there is a lagoon where some flamingos were, so we looked at them . They were quite far away from us, and nothing that we hadn't seen before, so we were all a bit bored to say the least. It wasn't a spectacular beach in comparison to what we'd seen already, and I'd even wondered why we bothered to drive one and a half hours to get here. So needless to say, we didn't stay there for long. We hopped back on the bus and it took us back to the main port of Santa Cruz. I had spoke to Sol a few days ago to let her know it was John's birthday to see of there was anything they could do, and she said they would do a birthday cake for him. So we were hoping that at dinner time aboard the boat that he would have his cake. 

John's Birthday Celebrations
 
This afternoon we had some free time to wander around Santa Cruz so as it was John's birthday Mark said did we want to go for a drink so of course we went and had a beverage. Mark wanted to try and find a place selling birthday cake and as I was with John constantly, I couldn't go myself. Mark looked around some of the shops, which there were only a few of them and unfortunately, he couldn't find anywhere that was selling any cakes . So I'm hoping the boat produces some cake later on. In the meantime, we went to a bar for a drink and bumped into some of the other ladies so sat with them for a drink. On the table next to us were a load of live cray fish all in a tray. I felt really sorry for them as they were all squished up next to each other and were probably waiting to be boiled alive. Can't they at least kill them rather than keeping them alive, they'll probably die in that tray for being out of water for so long. I thought the Galápagos Islanders were suppose to care about the welfare of their animals, including marine life... I didn't take any pictures of the poor little things. It was extraordinary to see them up close, as I'd not seen any before, so didn't know what they looked like. We had to sit on the table right next to them while we were having our drinks, so I couldn't help but keep looking at them. John said look the other way otherwise you'll upset yourself keep watching them. Their pincers kept moving every so often too, I felt like setting them all free and throwing them back in the sea, but if I did, I'd get in trouble . 

We had asked Sol if we could stay on Santa Cruz for a few hours before returning back to the boat, at first she only wanted to let us have an hour, but we persuaded her to let us have an hour and a half. So we didn't have long for drinks. Sol also told us that we'd be sailing for the rest of John's birthday once we got back on the boat, which none of us were looking forward to. We are travelling from Santa Cruz to San Cristobel, so that will take a few hours. We all asked Sol as it's John's birthday could we leave to sail at night rather during the day, and then at least we could have had a few extra hours on Santa Cruz independently. She said it was up to the captain and that she would ask him. We didn't think they would change their plans to suit us, but on the itinerary it did say that we were on Santa Cruz during the day and sailing at night. We think the real reason was that they wanted to get to San Cristobel early so they could all go and visit their families as Sol said most of the crew lived on San Cristobel island . So after our hour and a half was up, we had to go back to the boat, unfortunately. 

Once we were back on board, we literally started sailing straight away and sailed for a few hours. This was going to be a lovely birthday for John if we all started to feel sea sick. We thought we'd even have to have dinner with the boat still sailing. Luckily for us, we did stop sailing when the bell rang for dinner. It was nice of them to stop sailing while we ate dinner, so can't complain about that. Once we'd finished dinner, and desert was about to come out, I was hoping they would bring a nice home-made birthday cake for John so we could sing happy birthday again. So when they did bring out desert, it was a cake, but it was just a cake they'd bought in the shop and they hadn't made it especially. So I was a bit disappointed to say the least. At least they made some effort I suppose.

No sooner did we finish dinner and we were off sailing again, didn't even have time to let our food go down. The sea started getting really rough again and I was hoping to keep my food down as we wanted to enjoy John's birthday evening. However things never seem to go to plan, and not long after the dinner, everyone started to feel sick. The worst thing was that as it's our last night on the boat and we are disembarking it at 8am tomorrow, we now have to go and pack our bags, whilst feeling sick. So off we go up to pack our bags. I started to gather my things and tried to stand up in our tiny little cabin, but the more you try to stand up moving, the more sick you feel. I had to go and sit on the bed. And once again, I could feel myself wanting to throw up, so ran to the toilet to be sick. I wished we were off the boat tonight to be honest! I'll be so glad to get off the boat tomorrow so we can celebrate John's birthday without being sick! I managed to carry on packing the stuff, but as we both felt so sick, we couldn't go back downstairs to have any drinks. So for John's birthday we ended up in bed at 8.30pm.... Not what we had planned, but tomorrow when we're on San Cristobel independently, we'll be able to meet up with the others and have some belated birthday celebrations. Let's hope the boat does not sail completely through the night to get there. I think John has had a good birthday anyway, just being on the Galápagos Islands is enough for him. I just wish I wasn't sick for it, but luckily he wasn't sick on the boat once. Here's to being on dry land again tomorrow.