Dr. Joe set off on Friday, flying over 5 hours with all kinds of equipment to Ecuador, where he and a special team embark on their mission: to release giant tortoises on Pinta Island. His trip is just beginning, so if you haven’t read the first two installments, please CLICK HERE and HERE to read more.
May 8, Saturday morning, Santa Cruz Island, Galapagos, after a good night sleep
Getting started: All the equipment came in earlier this week from Abaxis to do blood chemistry analyses. On Thursday, the Zoo’s technicians helped walk me through the operations of the lab equipment. With their help I finished packing, using clothes to pad the equipment in the hard case luggage to assure it arrived safely. Unfortunately I’d packed too much stuff, so I jettisoned the lower priority items to get the 2 cases down to 50 lbs. each. I had no trouble getting through the airport, but had to pay for the extra bag.
Though our flight was delayed a few minutes, we made quick time in to Quito, the capital city of Ecuador. The 2 movies on the plane were unspectacular: “When in Rome” and “Have You Heard about the Morgans.” Food choices were a cheeseburger or a chicken fajita wrap. I took the wrap and didn’t choke on it.
As luck would have it, my case with all the equipment was the very last box off the plane, so I left the airport about as late as humanly possible! I got a cab to Hotel Akros and was in the room by 12:15 AM. Fortunately I was able to leave the reagents needed for blood analysis in the hotel’s refrigerator for the night. If they get warm before needed, they can fail, wasting the sample and the time it took to run it. So keeping them cool was a big priority during the trip from Houston to the apartment here at the Galapagos National Park facilities.
I met Linda Cayot for breakfast at 6:oo AM so we could get to the airport in time for our 8:30 flight. Linda works for Galapagos Conservancy, an NGO that supports science and restoration of Galapagos. She lived and worked here for 13 years, first as a student studying the ecology of giant tortoises, then ultimately as head of Herpetology for the Charles Darwin Research Station. She knows Galapagos, and she knows tortoises.
Although we had tickets for the same flight number, her departure was noted at 8:45 AM and mine said 8:30 AM (the plane indeed left at 8:30)! I was on the left of the cabin and was able to see three fine, snow covered peaks of the Andes Mountains protruding through the clouds as we descended into Guayaquil, Ecuador. Absolutely beautiful! After taking on a few passengers, and refueling, we took off for the airport on Baltra Island in Galapagos.
A map of the Galapogos Islands so you can see where we are, have been and are going!
Linda and I were joined before we left in Quito by Francisco — one of the team that will stay on Pinta for 10 weeks. Once we got to Baltra, the three of us were joined by Mario from the National Park, who got us and our luggage to the ferry at the Canal de Itabaca. We landed on Santa Cruz, took a truck over to the apartment in the facilities of the National Park, and unloaded. By then we were hungry so we went to lunch at “La Tintorera” where we were in the position to watch everybody on the street walking by. The strategy worked, as by the time we finished our $4 plate lunch, the entire Pinta team walked by!
We had a meeting in the afternoon with Wacho, and went out to see the tortoises, our work space, and finally, the area where the tortoises would stay for their last week in captivity. The pens are relatively small, but will be easy to keep clean of any seed or foreign material that we want to keep from moving out to Pinta with the animals. It’s imperative that we not introduce anything but tortoises when we go to this remote island.
In the evening we ate at the “kioskos” — a street that’s essentially closed off, with tables set in front of family owned small restaurants serving decent meals at decent prices. Then we returned our rooms. I was in bed by 9:00 and fell asleep before my head hit the pillow. Although it was warm and humid, I didn’t wake up until almost six in the morning!
Join Dr. Joe right here again tomorrow to see what he and the conservation crew did next!
Written by Dr. Joe Flanagan
Our thanks to Planetware.com for use of the map illustration
