Galapagos Islands - Islas Galápagos

Photo taken from the plane in the Itabaca Canal, with Baltra on the right and Santa Cruz on the left.

The Galapagos Islands They are a group of 14 islands and a series of islets located 972 kilometers from the Ecuadorian mainland coast. The islands, their national park and the marine biological reserve form the only province that is totally surrounded by water.

Of volcanic origin, the Galapagos are home to unique species] such as Iguanas, Galapagos tortoises, albatrosses, boobies and sea lions, among many others. The particular mixture of flora and fauna and the unique way in which many species evolved served as the object of study of the scientist Charles Darwin for his publications on the origin of species.

Understand

The Galapagos Islands were discovered by chance on March 10, 1535, when the Dominican religious Fray Tomás de Berlanga, then Bishop of Panama, was on his way to the Peru in fulfillment of a commission from the Spanish monarch Carlos V, to arbitrate in a dispute between Francisco Pizarro and his subordinates after the conquest of the Inca empire. The first maps to include the islands were those prepared by Abraham Ortelius and Mercator around 1570. The islands were described as "Insulae de los Galopegos" (Islands of the Turtles).

The Galapagos were used by English pirates as a hiding place on their voyages to pillage the Spanish galleons that carried gold and silver from America to Spain. The first known pirate to visit the islands was Richard Hawkins, in 1593. From then until 1816 many pirates came to the archipelago.

The first scientific mission to visit the Galapagos was the Malaspina expedition, a Spanish expedition led by Alejandro Malaspina, which arrived in 1790. However, the expedition records were never published. In 1793, James Colnett described the flora and fauna of the islands and suggested that they could be used as a base for whalers operating in the Pacific Ocean. Colnett also drew the first navigational charts of the Galapagos. The whalers captured and slaughtered thousands of the archipelago's turtles to extract their oil.

Ecuador it annexed the Galapagos Islands on February 12, 1832 under the government of General Juan José Flores, baptizing them as the Archipelago of Colón.

The trip of Beagle brought the British research ship under the command of Captain Robert FitzRoy to the Galapagos on September 15, 1835 to investigate the approaches to the ports. The captain and others on board, including the young naturalist Charles Darwin, conducted a scientific study of the geology and biology on four of the islands before continuing their expedition around the world on October 20.

To get

Galapagos Islands Map)

Through these ports you can go out to visit the other islands, since there is no accommodation in the rest of them.

Main ports

  • 1  Puerto Ayora
  • 2  Puerto Baquerizo Moreno
  • 3  Puerto Villamil

World Heritage

The UNESCO declared the Galapagos Islands as a Natural Heritage of Humanity in 1979 and, six years later, as a Biosphere Reserve (1985). In 2007, Unesco declared the Galapagos Islands as a World Heritage Site at environmental risk and was included in the List of World Heritage in Danger until 2010.

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