The best place to spot land iguanas on The Galapagos Islands is on Santa Cruz Island up the aptly named, Dragon Hill.
Santa Cruz is a
beautiful island and the day I landed to climb the hill it was flush with green growth after recent rain fall.
The lush new grass was good news for us since it meant that the dragons of the island were out grazing. These huge, bright yellow and orange land iguanas were everywhere, taking advantage of the greenery.
Usually the land is dry and they live on tough
prickly cactus plants. I videoed one as it tackled a cactus, rubbing the thorny spines off with its great claws.
It was great to see these iguanas wading through the bright
green vegetation. I saw over 20
on our walk and they were all slightly different.
Some were old and battle scarred and all had slightly different colouration.
The walk was quite a challenge since we had to traverse huge
boulders, but like everywhere in the Galapagos it was well worth it – especially
when we got to see the view from the top.