![]() (You might still land at an airport there today, though not the same strip the US built.) But it wasn’t until WWII-when the United States opened up a strategic military base on the island of Baltra and built an airstrip in response to Pearl Harbor-that the Galápagos was seen as accessible to the world. Isn’t this the place where animals roam free, basically a Planet Earth episode? Isn’t this the place that informed Darwin’s theory of evolution, ideas of natural selection, and so much more? (Yes… but humans.)Īnd tourism isn’t exactly new to the Galápagos: The first tourists arrived to the islands by cruise ship in 1834. It’s surprising to some that there are any inhabitants at all on these idyllic volcanic plots, straddling the equator about 600 miles off the western coast of South America. ![]() Today, there are a little over 30,000 inhabitants of the 13-island archipelago (plus hundreds of outcrops and droplets of rock), spread out among four main islands: about 24,000 on Santa Cruz 6,000 on San Cristobal 1,000 on Isabela and around 100 on Floreana. Free to walk on the streets without fear: of cars, of thieves, of any danger. “For someone who spent most of their childhood in a big city, you know it can be dangerous. After growing up in Guayaquil, the largest city in Ecuador, she now lives on the island of Santa Cruz with her husband, three children, and mother. It’s peaceful,” says Adriana Aguirre, Galápagos National Park naturalist and recently a guide on the inaugural Hurtigruten expedition cruise to the islands, where we met. “People want to move here-it’s beautiful, it’s safe, there’s so much nature. It’s still not knownwhether Watkins actually lost his boat or deliberately asked to be left on Floreana, but his desire to at least return to the islands is now shared by many more. And nothing has been heard about Patrick Watkins since. ![]() But before they could leave, local police found him hidden in a small boat, assumed foul play, and threw him in jail. He moved to Peru, and convinced a woman to return with him to the Galápagos. Strangely, only Watkins made it to Guayaquil (it is assumed that the rest either perished, or, more likely, Watkins killed them over the lack of fresh water). He acquired four friends through this method, and they eventually got it together enough to steal a boat and head to the mainland of Ecuador. Watkins was also wily, somehow managing to kidnap sailors by getting them drunk enough to miss their ships when they took off. By all accounts, he was blitzed for most of his time there, and according to journals by Captain David Porter-who only heard stories of the notorious Watkins floating around and decided to record them-he was a sight to behold, a beast in ragged clothing “sufficient to cover his nakedness, and covered with vermin his red hair and beard matted, his skin much burnt from constant exposure to the sun, and so wild and savage in his manner and appearance that he struck every one with horror.” (Well, okay, but understandable.) He drank mostly rum, for one, and grew vegetables on a small patch of land, trading them for more rum from passing sailors. Though there was scarce drinkable water on Floreana, save for a pond that filled up with rainwater during the rainy season, Watkins made do. That honor belongs to sailor Patrick Watkins-“Irish Pat”-who somehow lost his boat and was stranded on the black sand beaches of Floreana for two years, from 1807 to 1809, a strange new animal amongst the sea birds, turtles, and iguanas. The first human inhabitantof the Galápagos Islands was kind of a mess.
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