Rare creatures, unusual geography add to the allure of the remote Galápagos Islands

Chicago Tribune

14-05-2025

The remote Galápagos Islands of the Pacific, about 600 miles off the coast of Ecuador, have no historic monuments, only a handful of human settlements and the barest smattering of amenities such as restaurants and shops.
But you don't travel to the archipelago for these. You go in search of unearthly landscapes, pristine white-sand beaches and nearly 9,000 species of animals within the UNESCO World Heritage Galápagos National Park, all of which seem to have sprung to life from an Eric Carle picture book.
This rarity — of both the geography and the creatures that populate it — are part of the Galápagos' longstanding allure, and the subject of polar-opposite recent films.
Director Ron Howard's 'Eden,' which debuted in September at the Toronto Film Festival, tells the too-weird-not-to-be-true story of an unsolved mystery — and likely murder — on the inhospitable terrain of Floreana Island. The upcoming documentary 'Lions of the Sea,' from the producer of the Oscar-winning 'March of the Penguins,' is bound to make stars of the Galápagos sea lions, the most charismatic of the archipelago's iconic 'Big 15' species.
Despite the islands' seclusion, a trip to the Galápagos is within reach of many travelers. Last year, I was among a group of 70 passengers from all over the United States, plus England, Germany, France and Australia, who made the long trip to Baltra, site of a former U.S. military base and now the main airport in the Galápagos, after a couple days in Ecuador's capital, Quito.
We gathered aboard Norwegian expedition company HX's Santa Cruz II, a small but plush eco-minded cruise ship with high-end amenities such as three-course dinners and nightly turndown service. Their 'In Darwin's Footsteps' tour pays homage to the region's most famous visitor, Charles Darwin, who developed his pioneering evolutionary theories after exploring the islands nearly 200 years ago.
I've never been a cruising enthusiast, but HX expedition leader Ramiro Tomala sealed the deal when he told me, 'You can see a lot of things doing land-based operations, but there are several islands and their wildlife that you can only see by going on a cruise ship.'
Elizabeth Hennessey, history and environmental studies professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and author of 'On the Backs of Tortoises: Darwin, the Galápagos, and the Fate of an Evolutionary Eden,' said the Galápagos are very young islands, geologically speaking. 'They erupted out of the Pacific Ocean via volcanic activity between 3 and 5 million years ago,' she said.
Hennessey explained that the islands' isolation, scarcity of fresh water and arable land made them resistant to successful colonization until the mid-1900s. In the absence of human interference, incredible biodiversity developed, including hundreds of species — from multihued Christmas iguanas to voracious requiem sharks and blue- and red-footed boobies — found nowhere else in the world.
The Ecuadorian government and its partner organizations have developed a robust slate of programs to conserve them. These include the 2022 expansion of the Galápagos Marine Reserve by 23,000 square miles, including a no-hunting-allowed 'superhighway,' where species like hammerhead sharks and sperm whales can migrate and which connects to the newly formed Eastern Tropical Pacific Marine Corridor, one of the largest protected seascapes in the world.
Today the economy of the Galápagos, home to about 32,000 residents, is supported almost entirely by tourism. In 2023 there were 330,000 visitors, up from about 215,000 just a decade prior. It's a double-edged sword. In early 2024, five environmental groups called for tighter restrictions and environmental protections and even a delisting of the archipelago from UNESCO's World Heritage Site roster.
'Is tourism controlled in Galápagos? Yes. Do Galapaganeans need tourism? Yes,' Tomala countered when I asked him about the petition. 'Tourists bring money to the Galápagos, to the people that live here. The tax money we get helps us fund conservation projects. So it's a very delicate subject.'
In an effort to dissuade the unserious traveler, entrance fees to the Galápagos National Park were recently doubled to $200 per person. Whether such economic exclusions actually weed out the careless is anyone's guess. But a cruise like HX's includes the park fee in its overall price, and staff will obtain the necessary paperwork for you.
Unlike a typical cruise, expedition cruising transports you to locations that are hard, or even impossible, to visit via any other method. You spend less time aboard and more time zipping off on a panga, or Zodiac boat, to a land- or water-based adventure, from hiking and biking to kayaking, snorkeling and glass-bottom boat tours. After a day of touring, you return to the ship for a health-focused, local foods dinner, a lively presentation from one of the guides in the lounge or library and a rundown of the next day's activities.
Snorkeling, especially during the December-to-February stretch, when the waters around the Galápagos are at their clearest, is perhaps the most remarkable of all offered activities.
On one excursion, I swam above a pair of 9-foot white-tipped reef sharks — the non-biting kind — plus a polka-dotted eagle ray that glided above the ocean floor and a sea turtle paddling in a graceful water ballet. On another, I hung, suspended just below the surface, as a school of yellow-tail sturgeon parted like the Red Sea around me, tails tickling my ankles.
In my most memorable marine encounter, a young sea lion made eye contact and swam toward me. The species is famously playful, so I pinned my arms to my sides and gently rolled right and left. She mimicked my movements and then, with a few powerful thrusts of her flippers, rushed past me, so close that I could see the string of tiny bubbles exhaled through her nostrils.
There were plenty of close encounters of the animal kind on terra firma. On Santa Cruz Island, we visited a giant tortoise nursery where dozens of babies the size of silver dollars tested their shaky new legs over obstacles like rocks and rubber food dishes. In the highlands, we witnessed their 700-plus-pound adult counterparts lumbering like tanks through low-growing shrubs, leaving a U-shaped hole in the vegetation, to reach the edge of a pond, where they sank into a mud bath with a mighty grunt.
During a hike on Isabela Island, we walked between butter-colored land iguanas, their tongues sticky with the juice of ground-growing succulents. On a panga ride around North Seymour Island, we snapped pictures of indigo marine iguanas sliding off the rocks and into the water for a swim.
We saw too many birds to count: blue- and red-footed and Nazca boobies nesting, beaks tucked under wings, along the cliffs. Oystercatchers chirping and paddling their bright orange feet. Pelicans dive-bombing fish. Vociferous mockingbirds, the avians that most fascinated Darwin. Finches, which are most closely associated with the naturalist, didn't come to the forefront of evolutionary research until British biologist David Lack penned the 1947 book 'Darwin's Finches.'
Because hunting is illegal in the Galápagos, the wildlife can be unafraid of humans. You're still required to remain at least 6 feet away. That's far enough not to stress the animals but close enough that you can, for example, make out the pale tips on the fur of a grumbly, sunbathing pile of sea lions, or watch the comical warble-and-shimmy of the male magnificent frigate, beak resting on a red throat sac inflated like a heart-shaped pillow as he makes his best 'choose me' case to the eligible lady birds circling overhead.
Each evening, as the passengers returned to ship, we inevitably began recounting what we'd seen, sharing anecdotes and photos, cementing memories of the enigmatic 'little world within itself,' as Darwin had put it, that left an indelible mark on us.