Galapagos Tortues géantes , île de Santa Cruz, El Chato

Santa Cruz, Galapagos, Équateur

Santa Cruz, Galapagos, Ecuador

This morning, we ask Marcos, the owner of the cottage, for two bikes. On the way to Santa Rosa, 20 km away. Fortunately, public transport allows you to hang the bikes in luggage carriers. It suits us because the go is almost exclusively mounted. The chivas drops us off in a hamlet in the rain. We are waiting for the lull to get on the path. It doesn't take long for us to meet our first chelonians. In the middle of a landscape of pastures made of tall grasses we quickly realize that they are everywhere. We're introducing the game "but where are the turtles." Often mistaken for stones it is an impressive amount of domes that hide in the middle of the greenery. The more we get into the campaign, the more there are. Sometimes installed in the middle of the road, they enter their shell as we pass, blowing like a cat. We push to el Chato, a ranch where turtles frolic en freedom 

Nous nous acquitons des 10€ de droit d'entrée pour profite, en prime, d'un tunnel de lave de 500 mètres. Sur plusieurs hectares, des spécimens de plus de 120 ans et autant de kilos, sont vautrés dans des mares fangeuses. Pour certaines, Leur carapace prend des airs de blindage d'acier usé par les ans.

We pay the 10 euros of entrance fee to take advantage, as a bonus, of a lava tunnel of 500 meters. On several hectares, specimens more than 120 years old and as many kilos, are wallowing in fangs. For some, their shells take on the air of steel armour worn down by the years.

Nous quittons el Chato en début d'après midi. Il pleut de nouveau et nous sommes à 2 heures de velo, de notre hôtel. Quand faut y aller! Conformément au plan, nous rentrons trempés comme des soupes, et crottés jusqu'aux trous de nez. Notre retour ,tout en descente ou presque, s est fait pluie pleine face, pluie fine mais ultra pénétrante. Avec nos vélos du genre antique, pas de garde boue, et selles très abîmées, nous nous laissons rouler dans les descentes, sur cette belle piste cyclable.Nous arrivons les mollets et fesses endoloris.

Même pas peur.

We leave el Chato in the early afternoon. It's raining again and we're 2 hours high from our hotel. When to go! In accordance with the plan, we come home soaked like soups, and cropped up to the holes in our noses. Our return, while descending or almost, was rain full face, fine rain but ultra penetrating. With our bikes of the ancient kind, no mud guard, and badly damaged saddles, we let ourselves ride in the descents, on this beautiful bike path. We arrive sore calves and buttocks.

Not even scared.