The Galápagos Islands
July 3
There are 43 islands that make up the archipelago. We are aiming to visit 5. Our flight from Quito took us almost 1000 km west of Ecuador. We landed on Baltra Island and took a ferry over to the most populated Island, Santa Cruz, where about 18000 people live.
The islands got their name from Tomas de Berlanga, the Bishop of Panama. His ship went off course on the way to Peru. They did not stay for long, but wrote to King Charles V of Spain about the giant land tortoises with shells that were shaped like riding saddles. Galápagos means “saddles” in Spanish. They were also called Las Islas Encatadas (The Enchanted Islands) by Diego de Rivandeneira, a Spanish Conquistador. He claimed they were enchanted because the islands supposedly moved with the currents, making it difficult to find them. Scientists now know that this is partly true. Santa Cruz island shifts about 3cm to the east every year. Our naturalist guide, Ricardo, told us that the humans don’t feel it, but the animals and the islands feel it.
During the 1600s, various pirates used the islands as a base, and were the first humans to interfere with the ecosystem. This started the decline of the giant tortoise population. Before humans came along, there was an estimated 250,000 giant land tortoises on the Islands, now there are about 4000.
In 1832, Ecuador officially took possession of the islands.
The islands were also made famous by Charles Darwin, who spent time there studying the wildlife population. These were crucial field studies that led to his formulating his ground breaking theory of evolution.
Today we were lucky enough to visit an area heavily populated with giant land tortoises. Watching them plod along and eat guavas was positively mesmerizing. Their feet look like they belong to an elephant and their jaws are as powerful as a crocodile. We could have sat and watched them all day.
We also walked through a 400m lava tube that ran deep underground. It was amazing to picture the huge vein of molten lava that flowed beneath the surface so long ago, as we were hiking through the cool, humid tunnel, periodically stopping to crawl though cracks in the rock walls.
Also impressive were two volcanic implosion craters diving almost three hundred metres down. Now vegetated, the crater valleys are lush.
After a long fascinating day, we checked into our 3 bedroom apartment suite with a view of the coast. It feels like paradise. After sorting out some of the details for tomorrow’s adventure, we had a delicious dinner at a recommended restaurant around the corner. On this particular street, they close it off to cars, put out wooden tables and chairs, and people eat outside the restaurant in the middle of the road. A perfect end to a perfect day. Tomorrow we visit South Plaza Island.