Interestingly, many of the
island's early settlers came from Europe in search for a simpler and better life. Harsh reality soon proved their naive ideas
dead wrong.
Nowadays most of the new settlers come from Ecuador with basically the same dreams and the same future...
Just north
of Santa Cruz is Baltra Island, the archipelago's main airport connection to South America's mainland, 1350 km to the east.
A trip to the Charles Darwin Station and its turtle breeding program is mandatory for all tourists that visit the
Galapagos Islands.
It makes one wonder how to reconcile Darwin's survival of the fittest theory with these breeding programs to save
species from extinction.
Other locations we visited were Bachas Beach and Dragon Hill to the north, and a rancho high up
in the Highlands.
