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January 8, 1997
City Guides and Maps:Ecuador
Meet the Animals(CNN) -- It's a place where there are birds that don't fly, tortoises weighing up to 500 pounds, Antarctic penguins on the equator and numerous blue-footed boobies. As exotic as its own name sounds, the Galapagos Islands is also the place that gave Charles Darwin an idea or two about evolution.
Rising from the Pacific more than 3 million years ago, these stark, sculptured islands lie 600 miles off the coast of Ecuador in South America. The archipelago is vast, covering more than 3000 square miles, and breathtaking, with rocks jutting into a sky of blue and stretches of land punctuating water.
Officially discovered by the Spanish in 1535, the Galapagos were annexed by Ecuador in 1832. Darwin visited three years later, and found fertile material for both scientific research and creative thinking. In "The Voyage of the Beagle," Darwin describes the haunting surface of one of the Galapagos' isles.
"The entire surface of this part of the island seems to have been permeated, like a sieve, " he wrote. "Here and there the lava, whilst soft, has been blown into great bubbles; and in other parts, the tops of caverns similarly formed have fallen in, leaving circular pits with steep sides. From the regular form of the many craters, they gave to the country an artificial appearance, which vividly reminded me of those parts of Staffordshire where the great iron foundries are most numerous."
Darwin goes on to describe his encounter with two giant tortoises: "These huge reptiles, surrounded by the black lava, the leafless shrubs and large cacti, seemed to my fancy like some antediluvian animals. The few dull-colored birds cared no more for me than they did for the great tortoises."
Intrigued by the variety of wildlife on the islands, Darwin said the animals influenced him as he developed his ideas for his famed "Origin of the Species." In fact, many of the Galapagos' creatures are unique to the islands. All of the reptiles, half of the birds, about a third of the plants and a fourth of the fish are found nowhere else.
"What the Galapagos has to offer that you won't find anywhere else in the world are unique species that are almost indifferent to your presence," says Douglas Siefert, an islands tourist and professional photographer. "Keeping within the guidelines of the park, you can approach the animal life here as closely as you would around life in your backyard or zoo, except this isn't an artificial environment. This is real-life nature just as Darwin saw it in the 1800s."
But don't go there expecting to be Dr. Doolittle and/or Mr. Green Jeans. The Galapagos is a protected area -- 97 percent of the archipelago is a national park (the remaining 3 percent is inhabited).
While you'll see plenty of animals, you're expected to treat them with respect and follow the island's rules (for instance, groups visiting the national park must be accompanied by a park-approved guide). The Charles Darwin Research Station and the Galapagos National Park Service work hard to protect the islands' endangered animal populations, including tortoises, dark-rumped petrels (it's an ocean bird) and land iguanas. There are guidelines for whale-watching.
"The Galapagos is the most beautiful spot on earth," traveler Valerie Siefert muses. "It's a spot where you can come, where people should come to reflect on nature ... to see things born, to see things die. You see everything. You see all aspects of life in the fish, in the birds, in the iguanas, in everything."
City Guides and Maps:Ecuador
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