He Tales # 5 - Galapagos
21 February 2003

When early Spanish explorers arrived here, they were very impressed by the giant tortoises roaming the land, so they named this archipelago Gallappago after the Spanish word for saddle. The tortoise shells of dark brown with high peaks in the front looked very much like the horse saddles the explorers used. Today, this small island world 600 miles west of Ecuador is still home to the great tortoise, and today explorers still come here, looking for a lost paradise in “Mitad del Mundo”, the Middle of the World.

Puerto Ayora on Santa Cruz Island is the hub for explorers today, serving as both the largest village in the islands and the place to catch most of the tour boats for trips around the Islands. Puerto Ayora reminds you of the very small towns of the old west. We can’t walk down the street without seeing people we know, and the only parking hassles come from finding space at the curb in front of the volleyball courts and the bank to park your bicycle. The taxis here are almost all pickup trucks, because most people just walk unless they need to transport supplies, where trucks are more useful. T-shirt shops are ubiquitous, and serve the migrant population looking for memories of a beautiful experience.

But what makes this town special is its pride. We were here for Galapagos Days, which ended in a parade February 18th marking the day Galapagos received its status as a province. The parade was wonderful, complete with marching navy and army troops stomping in front of the officers stand, A Miss Isla Santa Cruz parade queen and her court, and enough local clubs, organizations, civic groups and Charles Darwin Station employees to ensure that getting a close view of the parade was easy, as most islanders were in it! There were also bike races and volleyball tournaments, and even one night where there was a small concert. Unfortunately, the power on the island blew at 11:00, sending people home a little grumbly at the shortened program. Turns out the island power runs on gasoline generators, and one of the tanks ran out. The guy watching it must have gone to the party.

But Galapagos would be unknown country if the towns were as far as travelers ventured. What people come here for is the natural wonders. Kim and I got extremely lucky, as we found space on an 8-day luxury class yacht at real last minute prices. We actually found, booked and boarded it within two hours. The Yate Heritage is a gorgeous boat, and with more than 250 feet of deck space and only 16 passengers, we had a perfect viewing platform for this magic place.

Galapagos brings you in close. As you crawl along paths of tossed lava, it is quite common to hear snorts and grunts as sea lions and iguanas try to avoid being trampled underfeet. You cannot imagine how hard it is to see black marine iguanas on lava. Masked boobies stare at you from their nests, as curious about you as you are about them. While snorkeling, sea lions come close to play, twisting around you, wondering why you can’t compete in their underwater dance contest. Favorite memories for me will always include the “kiss” I got as a sea lion came up and blew bubbles right in my face, watching a massive giant tortoise calmly chewing grass one chomp at a time, just as he has probably done since before my grandparents were born, and kayaking among playful sea lions, stoic penguins, and noisy blue-footed boobies, calmly paddling by under a cool gray sky.

There are so many beautiful creatures in these islands. Yellow and orange land iguanas stare at you from their burrows as you pass by. Jet-black frigate birds practice mating rituals where they inflate neck sacks of tomato red to the size of sweet potatoes. Black marine iguanas that look painted with swatches of dull red and turquoise blue pose casually on the rocks, aware of how photogenic they are. Blue-footed boobies puzzle you, trying to figure out why their feet are a shocking sky blue. Sally Lightfoot crabs have shells of rich orange over an underside of soft blue, which is visible as they crawl around the rocky shorelines. And in dark fissures of lava, pools of seawater serve as playgrounds for the fur sea lions, where they jump and chase each other with the energy of a box full of puppies. Watching them play in the crystal turquoise water, it is clear they have found their paradise.

While the animals abound here, the conditions in the lowlands are actually quite severe. Morning walks usually start at 7:15, because by 9:30 the warm equatorial sun bakes the land, sending most creatures scurrying for shade. Many islands have no water sources, so the animals have learned to obtain water from plant sources for survival. As you stare across dry desolate lava fields and plains of brown grasses of the lower islands, you wonder how life could survive here. But survive it does, in surprising collections. In one day, we saw penguins, greater flamingos, flightless cormorants (they swim here, so over time their wings have become vestigal), sea lions, turtles and sharks, as well as tortoises and iguanas. We also saw cactuses springing from barren lava and mangrove forests as thick as the everglades where sea turtles find solitude for mating. No place else on earth can you find such a random collection of life trapped by long ocean voyages completed long ago.

As we cruised into the setting sun each evening, I pulled out a copy of Darwin’s “Origin of the Species”, lost in a discussion of finch adaptation, reflecting on this place that inspired Mr. Darwin to shock the natural science world in 1859. As you travel from island to island, you see the changes in the animals that prove a theory of species mutability in understated power. Finches with hard beaks to crack seeds, long beaks to dig into trees for insects, and iguanas that have split into land and water species show how nature can adapt quite nicely to this fragile world. My favorite adaptation relates to the poison apple tree. To humans, the dew from the leaves is enough to cause severe rashes, and eating one of the tiny apples will likely kill you. But the tortoises love them, and they gobble them up with immunity, feasting on a fruit made by God just for them.

A Fragile World

The Galapagos, for all its beauty, is a fragile place. Human populations, especially in Puerta Ayora, have swelled to more than 10,000, creating a vibrant village full of island life. But this life is competing with an ecosystem unable to cope. Feral dogs and cats attack land iguanas and endangered giant tortoises. Some of the “eco-friendly” cruise boats use a cleaning technique called careening, where the boat is simply tied up dockside at high tide. When the tide runs out, they quickly scrape and paint the bottom as the paint chips scatter into the mud. Perhaps even more shocking, we had a sad discussion with our guide Fabio one morning as we watched a mother sea lion pass by with a fishing net caught around her neck, dug in and bleeding all around. As her pup suckled up to her, we asked what it would take to remove the string cutting her flesh. He said it takes four men to do the job, so powerful are the sea lions. Unfortunately, the Park cannot afford the men, so there was nothing we could do. We watched in helplessness as she shepherded her baby into the water, swimming to a future darkened by man.

Perhaps the worst man-made disasters on the Galapagos happened when early buccaneers and whale ships in the 18th and 19th centuries stopped here to hunt for the “sweet meat” of the giant tortoises. Their brutality was enough to drain many tortoise populations to dangerous levels. Records of just the whalers show more than 100,000 tortoises killed. Even worse, the whalers and early explorers introduced goats and rats to the islands, with disastrous results. Wild goats breed extremely fast, and today the national park is struggling to eradicate them. The goats compete for food with the tortoises. Since the goats are far faster eaters and can reach higher than the tortoises, they have literally stolen the entire food supply of the tortoises in several environments.

Thankfully, the Charles Darwin Center in Puerto Ayora thinks the tortoise is one of the most amazing creatures in the Islands. The have started captive breeding programs that increase hatch rates and protect young turtles from the rats, cats, and dogs which threaten them. Walking through their open pens is at once a beautiful and sad experience. Just watching a tortoise, with its dinosaur shaped head, slowly crush a green branch and eat it with slow deliberate chomps transports you to a time before man when these creatures walked the lush highlands of the Galapagos without a care in the world. One tortoise, Lonesome George, is the symbol for the station. He is the last Pinta Island tortoise left. When he dies, the subspecies will too. Breeding attempts with his two closest relations have proved unsuccessful. He is our reminder how beautiful and fragile the Galapagos can be.

In the water, similar threats abound. Illegal fishing has decimated populations of sea cucumbers and white finned sharks. The cucumbers are said to be an aphrodisiac in Asian countries, and the sharks are fished for their fins, which are chopped off at water’s edge, leaving the fish to drown. There is a navy that patrols the waters, but stories from experienced guides abound of ships that got released with catch intact after mysterious “calls” from naval officials. Those ships that are impounded have a tendency to disappear from the harbor on a regular basis. It is a sad fact that even though the Galapagos is a World Heritage Site and is considered one of the seven underwater wonders of the world, it is a part of a very poor country, which simply does not have the money to effectively protect it.

An Answer to a Recurring Question

With these thoughts in my head, I’d like to answer some letters and comments Kim and I have received in the past few weeks. A few of you have rightly commented that the world is a dangerous place at the moment. From a potential war to high-crime nations to terrorist threats, it seems like a horrible time to take off around the world. Some have asked us to consider coming home, to be safer in a world that’s just a little too crazy at the moment.

When we look at the Galapagos, we know why our place is out here now. Simply put, there are too many places being changed and destroyed that we want desperately to see before it’s too late. From the Yangtze River valley in China to small coastal villages in Greece, there are places out there right now that won’t be the same in a few years, lost forever to progress and pollution. Here in the Galapagos, a small diesel spill is a normal event, and a large one happened in 1999. With an increasing population that does little to conserve resources, it is only a matter of time until one of the beautiful islands we visited is forever scarred by disaster.

Yes it’s a big scary world out there, and yes, there are risks to traveling now. But we believe that if we get too scared to live our dreams, the terrorists have won, for they will have taken the only thing from us that matters, our dream to explore this planet, around the world and back again. It’s an amazing world out here, and we’re glad we can share it with you.

Kim and I have been extremely lucky these past couple of weeks. We have been in the Galapagos. For me, this place now joins a growing list of natural environments I love completely, which right now includes the Serengeti, Antarctica, Yellowstone, and the National Parks of the U.S Southwest. I hope you may visit these islands sometime, walking in our footsteps, enjoying creatures designed by god to make you smile.