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The archipelago's centre and tourist hub, SANTA CRUZ is a conical island of just under 1000 square kilometres, whose luxuriant southeastern slopes are cloaked each year in the drizzle of the garua. Reaching an altitude of 864m, the island supports all the Galapagos vegetation zones , from cactus-strewn deserts around the coast, to tangled scalesia and miconia forests wreathed in cloud in the highlands, and sodden grassy pampas at the summit. Many of its endemic plants, however, have become increasingly threatened by a number of introduced species. Its proximity to the airport on Baltra has conspired to make it the most heavily populated island in the Galapagos, having the archipelago's largest town, Puerto Ayora , and is also the nerve centre of the conservation programme, headquarters of both the Charles Darwin Research Station and the Parque Nacional Galapagos . Home to more boats, tour brokers, hotels and restaurants than anywhere else in the islands, it's also the best place for budget travellers to find last-minute places on cruises. While waiting for an opening, they can make for a selection of nearby visitor sites without a guide, such as Bahia Tortuga , the Tortoise Reserve , go on half- or full-day trips to highland sights, including several lava tunnels , or take day-trips by boat to the nearby islands in this central group, such as Santa Fe, Plaza Sur and Seymour Norte . The following sites on the north side of Santa Cruz can only be visited by boat tours and require guides. Occasionally, day-trips sail there, but more commonly, boats call at these spots having left the harbour at nearby Baltra. A typical first stop is at Las Bachas at the north of Santa Cruz, named for the barges abandoned on the beach here by the US during World War II: their rusting skeletons still poke through the sand. It's a popular place for swimming, but also makes a good introduction to wildlife, with marine iguanas, hermit crabs, black-necked stilts, great blue herons and turtle nests - whose tracks you may see from November to February, and flamingos tiptoeing around the saltwater lagoon behind the smaller beach. To the west is Caleta Tortuga Negra , a cove where Pacific green turtles (despite the cove's name) come to breed at the beginning of the warm-wet season. White-tipped reef sharks and rays can be spotted throughout the year, and the lagoon itself is fringed by mangroves, where herons and pelicans nest. On the northwestern tip of the island, the Cerro Dragon site consists of a gravel path winding up from flamingo lagoons to the top of the hill, passing land iguanas and their nests. Most have been repatriated since the extermination of feral dogs here in 1990. Heading further westwards, Bahia Conway , where a colony of five hundred land iguanas were killed in an attack by feral dogs in 1976, and Bahia Ballena , a one-time whaling post, are seldom visited.
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