On day 3 wake up call was at 6.45am I had actually had a good nights sleep the wine may have had something to do with it and the exhilaration of yesterday’s adventures. After breakfast we headed off to Dragon hill on Santa Cruz island. This was going to be the only place that we would see land iguanas in the wild on this trip. These creatures can be quite illusive as they are quite shy, Tim who had visited in December a few years previous had been to this island and not seen any at all.
The island was very sparse and dry of vegetation with huge cactus and cotton trees, however amazingly there were lots of birds and insects around. The first thing we saw was an amazing salt water lagoon with lots of wading birds.
Then we saw our first land iguana it was a bright yellow male about 4 feet long sun bathing – very different to the marine iguanas we had encountered. They do not live in huge groups like the marine iguanas but in solitary except at breeding season which it was. They have their own patches that they fiercely patrol and guard from intruders.
We then came across a 2 large male land iguanas and a female the largest of the males was head bobbing to entice the female then the female did the same which our guide said meant she was receptacle. The female creates a burrow which she will lay her eggs in.
Everywhere you went on the island you saw and heard these huge painted locusts – I actually managed to get a photo of one just before it flew off, you quite often had to duck as they would really hurt at the speed they were travelling. We saw only a few flowers most of which were either cacti or cotton flowers.
We then went further around the island and spotted a few more land iguanas and we went past another salt water lagoon where they were 2 flamingos feeding, the guide said that this was a really good sign as the flamingos had not been around for a while due to the lack of water and shrimps.
We then went swimming off a lovely soft sand beach it was very relaxing as the island was very hot and humid by 11am the only issue was there were a lot of horse flies around and we had to keep ducking under the water to avoid them.
