A Fragile Island Eden "Galapagos"

The Galápagos Islands will soon face tourism restrictions—go while you still can.

Antonin Kratochvil / VII

Even from a distance, the Galápagos Islands look harsh and unforgiving. Arranged in an almost straight line, they jut out of the ocean, one after the other, a series of lava outcroppings 800 kilometers off the coast of Ecuador. The things that make them so harsh—the scarcity of fresh water, for example—are also what make them so important. The very harshness of the islands means that there are few things living on them and their struggle for survival is easy to see. But this also means that the ecology of the islands is fragile and, starting in January, the Galápagos National Park will be placing a series of restrictions on tourism, making it more complicated to visit the islands.

It is always horrible to learn that a destination that is difficult to reach is going to withdraw even farther into the distance. Here is the signal experience of going to the Galápagos: read ahead and decide if it is worth making the effort. You are on one of the islands, wearing your typical goofy, floppy, I-am-a-tourist hat. You bring a camera up to your eye. Suddenly, a finch lands on the camera and bends down to look into your lens. In your viewfinder you see the beak and enormous eye of the curious bird.

Many people compare visiting the Galápagos with going on a safari. This is wrong. The two experiences are nothing alike.

It is strange to apply the word “Eden” to islands that are so difficult to survive on, yet nothing else appears appropriate. The Ecuadoran government has done a good-enough job restricting access to the islands so that the birds and animals aren’t frightened of humans. You arrive on the islands and see the innocence of these animals and you feel vaguely embarrassed, not for any particular thing you have done but for the general cruelty and selfishness of human beings. If such trust is possible here, why isn’t it possible everywhere?

Go to Kenya or South Africa or Botswana, and the landscape is both jade green and often so crowded with animal life that it sometimes feels like being in Times Square. Visiting the seemingly barren Galápagos is closer to visiting a Japanese stone garden. Your senses get sharpened. At first, this process of forced concentration feels weird.

Look at the water, the guide said to me. Doesn’t it look like gin, like it’s oily? That’s because there’s so much salt, must saltier than the sea. How can anything live in that? Amazing, no?

We were looking at pink flamingos moving slowly across a shallow lake. The sun was setting, and the flamingos were walking with their heads seemingly buried in the sand. In the slow, meditative way they were walking, the birds looked oddly religious.

Look at the trails the flamingos leave behind, the dark lines in the sand, the guide said. See how one flamingo’s trail doesn’t overlap with another. Amazing, huh?

This was on my first day of a Galápagos cruise, and to me the guide’s frequent use of “amazing” felt like he was trying to sell me.

Taken from

http://www.newsweek.com/


For more info of the Galapagos Islands check it on www.visitecuador.com.ec

Taken from