Rancho Primicias - Giant Tortoise Reserve — Attraction in Parroquia Santa Rosa

Ok guys, after reading contradicting and confusing reviews about how to get here, differences from El Chato (some reviews were mixed up), and what to expect in terms of pricing and tour guides, I’ve summarized as follows for everyone’s info below (for those staying on Santa Cruz Island wanting to visit the turtoises on their own, not the day visitors from cruise ships or on way to/from airport, or those joining tour buses), based on my experience as of mid 2024:

Taking a taxi is the most convenient and comfortable option to get there for the town, about 30min ride for one way. Yes, you can take a local bus to Santa Rosa and then walk/cycle to the Ranches like somebody did on a budget, but bearing in mind it could be hot, and there’s not much scenery on the way (just dirt roads with some trees and lots of cattle). (I asked a couple of locals and they discouraged me from trying to do it) Please ask your driver about the cost and wait for you to finish the tour to take you back to the town.

El Chato and Primicias are two adjacent ranches, and similar (lava tunnel + a ranch with turtoises) apparently. I’ve asked many locals and different ppl have different preferences, but it seems La Primicias is a bit more popular among locals. The turtoise freely roamed between the two ranches, so it’s a bit of luck factor of whether you manage to see more or less turtoises during your visit.

I visited Rancho Primicias. The price was actually transparent and clear at the entrance — as of 2024, you must need a guide (guia) (you can choose English or Spanish), and that cost $2.5, in addition to entrance fee $6, per person. So it’s $8.5. (You can tip extra as you wish). The entrance fee includes a lava tunnel (self walking, no guide) which you can choose to walk or not. It’s an ok attraction (longer and deeper tunnel for La Primicias than El Chato) as a cave/tunnel (800m long), with one narrow section you need to squat down. Otherwise it’s an easy walk, just mind some wet and dim sections with dripping water and water puddles and you’ll be fine.

There’s no free tea or coffee as some had suggested, but you can purchase there. There’s a bar where you can purchase food or drinks, including beer (my driver highly recommended, but I didn’t try). Very well-maintained toilet facility available, with soap. So you can relax a bit after finishing the rancho tour before asking your taxi driver to take you to the lava tunnel. (Note some bad reviews here were mainly about the food/drinks here rather than the ranch). Free wifi available via scanning a QR code (otherwise no phone reception even for Claro)

The tour guide at the ranch (my guide was called Diego) was patient and friendly, speaking fluent English and Spanish (I was in a bilingual group). Thumbs up to his great job. He took the time to help take photos and videos, explain facts about the turtoises and fauna, and could answer questions. He showed enthusiasm and care about the tortoises, which’s nice. I’m not sure why some reviewers said it’s easy to get lost and really big which’s not what I found — maybe the guide only took me to a section.

The place will offer rain boots for free to you if it’s rainy, but if not you can just walk on normal shoes.

The tour was about 40 minutes long — already fairly sufficient for an enjoyable walk around the ranch while learning from the guide. Even at around 4-5pm it could get quite hot there.

Please observe the rule of 2m away from the animals just like in anywhere else in the Galapagos, and don’t touch or scare the turtoises.

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Whether the price is worth it is subjective, but relative to other attractions in Galapagos, considering the upkeeping of facilities, and the option to purchase food/drinks/souvenirs without any pressure to enhance the experience, I think it’s reasonable especially if you’re an...

One of the top Tourist attraction in Santa Cruz, Galápagos Islands. Tickets at the ticket booth about $10 per person and taxi ride from hotel and back to town and back to hotel costs about $60. We went on a week day and many tourists and tour buses were there. Our wait was only 7-10 mins. They have tea, coffee and water for a tip. And can buy drinks and snacks from their small snack bar.

It was a little too touristy for us. The guide was very quick and wanted to get done with the tour and move on. No additional details or stories were shared, like we wanted know how this ranch came into existence or no fun facts shared! Just a plain experience.

Overall the main star of the show are the giant tortoises and they played their part so well! We were able to take pictures with them easy and keeping a distance. There are many tortoises in the wild out there. Some are huge in size!

They also have small lava tunnels which again were not impressive for us also as we went to a huge 1 km long Lava Tunnel in our hotel (Hilton Royal Palm, Galapagos) so these small tunnels were not impressive after the tour of the huge 1 km long lava tunnel at Hilton’s property (where we stayed) I believe they donot allow visitors or tourist who are not hotel guests.

Surprisingly, after coming out of the tunnel at Hilton a giant tortoise also was also waiting out near the tunnels exit for us! So our trip to the reserve wasn’t much interesting as we got to experience all in our hotel’s property. Recommending this trip if you want to explore tortoises in the wild. Bring a sunscreen. They provide gum boots as...

This place is great and it's so much better to see the giant tortoises roam freely here than to see them in the tiny dusty dry pens of the various breeding centres on the different Galapagos Islands. Here, they are truly free to roam where they want to. They are free to come and go as they please and you can see that it's better for them, because there are much bigger tortoises here than anywhere else. It costs $10 to enter and this includes a guided tour of the ranch and the nearby lava tunnels... and a free cup of tea or coffee at the end. You also get use of a pair of rubber boots, which come on very useful, as it's often wet and muddy here. The guide was very knowledgeable and gives lots of interesting facts about the tortoises and he seemed to have some kind of relationship with the biggest tortoise there. He signalled to this tortoise, by waving his hand in an upward motion and unbelievably, this enormous tortoise stood up for him. Incredible. The lava tunnels were a bit of a disappointment though, but I didn't come to see them, so it wasn't so bad. Just don't expect much from them and you won't be too...