On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.
From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.
arrieve
This is the final group of photos. I’ve loved having an excuse to go through them.
Returning to Santa Cruz island. We took a bus from Puerto Ayora up into the highlands, where the dry grass and cactus gave way to lush greens, perfect for growing coffee and sugar, and the occasional tortoise walking along the road. The families who live there have been farming the land since before the creation of the national park.
Some of the sugar grown here becomes rum, after the patient donkey above squeezes the juice from the sugar cane. We got samples of the cane to eat; and also got to try roasted coffee beans eaten with a couple of lumps of fresh brown sugar — insanely delicious. We were offered samples of the rum as well, but I passed and went back for another coffee bean instead.
This little boy didn’t care about all the strange visitors milling around trying the coffee and the rum. Not when there was that really cool truck up the road.
One of Mr. Darwin’s finches on Santa Cruz.
Another finch.
Santiago island, seen from the ship, in the magic light of early evening.
Finally, two more from Genovesa. This is a swallow-tailed gull, the only nocturnal seabird in the world.
And a much younger swallow-tailed gull, with mom.
Mary G
This must have been, one of the trips of a lifetime, and I’m glad to get to go along vicariously. Thank you, arrieve. The shot of Santiago Island at golden hour is stunning. I also got a little shock seeing Darwin’s finch, thinking what great strides of science were kicked off by his noticing them.
rikyrah
The tortoise???
Great pictures
the pollyanna from hell
Thanx for correcting errors in my fantasies of Galapagos as they continued all my life.
SiubhanDuinne
Those photos are all wonderful, and that tortoise is profoundly cute!
HeartlandLiberal
I love turtles in general, one of my favorite creatures. Survivors. But the giant tortoises take my breath away. Such magnificent, ancient creatures. Here is link to article on BBC about Jonathan, the possibly 182 year old tortoise on the island of St. Helena, who is considered a jewel in the crown of the island. He may possibly be the oldest living land creature on Earth.
bbc.com/news/magazine-26543021
MazeDancer
Wonderful photos!
KSinMA
Wonderful pictures. Thanks!
randy khan
Wonderful.
WaterGirl
arrieve, thank you for taking us on this wonderful trip to the Galapagos!
Albatrossity
Actually, he didn’t do the noticing. He thought, at the time he was collecting them, that they were just a bunch of blackbirds and grosbeaks. He didn’t even keep very good records about which island they were collected from! His specimens were examined by John Gould, an esteemed ornithologist, when he returned to England, and Gould figured out that they were all finches and probably all closely related to each other.
Benw
Gonna miss these
stinger
Again, such wonderful photos of an amazing place. I, too, am sorry this series is at an end! Thank you, arrieve!
J R in WV
Great job, so glad you shared with us. Learning so much from everyone On the Road!!