Aeroporta, Baltra, Galapagos Islands, Ecuador – One guidebook I read said that only 150,000 tourists a year currently visit the Galápagos Islands. I think the number is a little out dated, but when you compare that with the fact that a major art exhibition at Tate Modern in London can almost get that many visitors in one day, you get a perspective on what a privilege it is to visit these magnificent islands. And boy, what a privilege it has been!!
I’ve hinted several times that I really didn’t know what to expect when I got here. The landscape and people and history constantly surprised me. Yesterday, we went to Tortuga Bay. This area of two perfect half moon shaped beaches with finer than flour white sand, could only be reached by a 50 minute walk through a giant prickly pear forest. The reward was the most stunning beaches I’ve ever seen. What made it special was that you couldnt see any sign of human development for as far as your eyes could see. In any other country, this pristine land would have a five star resort on it. We spent the morning there kayaking, baking in the sun and wading in the shark infested waters. I’m sure the baby white tipped sharks were harmless, but still wasn’t too keen to be in the water with them. At one juncture, three of us were calf deep in the water, strolling back to our towels when I spotted something small and a feet in front of us. I thought it was just another marine iguana, but when we were less than a foot from it realised it was a shark! We had a lot of these kinds of spottings. I certainly didn’t expect to see so many sharks so close to the shoreline, but I also didn’t expect to see the long stretches of white sandy beaches that we saw both here at Tortuga Bay and in Isabella.
It also never really occurred to me that the Islands would be inhabited and that they would have a human story to tell along rccr the natural history. Silly I know. I just thought that the Galápagos Islands were vast wildernesses full of giant tortoises. And maybe when I learned about them 30 years ago, they were more like that. Certainly pictures I saw of the various town expansions between 1959, when it was declared a national park, and today indicates that the number of inhabitants has probably tripled or quadrupled in the last 50 years. Although Charles Darwin arrived in 1835, the lack of water and rugged lava terrain prohibited colonisation until the early 1900s. Florena was the first of the 13 major islands to be colonised. Although pirates used the island as a stake out point before, the first real inhabitants were by the Wittmers who escaped Germany for a simple, rustic life. Another hippy couple joined them a few years later, and story of wife swapping and murder now haunts the island. Still the population remains as one of the smallest with around 120 people. Isabela was used as a penal colony, and we saw the Wall of Tears were prisoners were forced to carry 30kg lava rocks from the highlands 10km to build a 20ft tall x several foot long wall just for the purpose of torture. And an airstrip was put on the flat Baltra island by the Americans during WWII as a base to protect the Panama Canal after the bombing of Pearl Harbour. Thus the nearby Santa Cruz island, reached by a five minute boat ferry, has become the most populated and developed of the Islands with numerous souvenir shops, hotels and resturants.
Still despite these developments, most of the Galápagos remains a vast national parkland, void of humans, and whose habitats and animals are fiercely protected. And the beauty of the place still remains. I hope the authorities can resist the urge for a greater influx of tourism and money and it can remain this way long into the future. I’m hopeful, but doubtful. Although the heafty cost of visiting there does create a natural barrier to the number of yearly visitors. Time will tell.
