 Stare into the eye of a 200 year old tortoise. |
If you are weary of trademark tropical resorts and crave adventurous locations away from the maddening, beer-swilling crowds, then set a course for the Galápagos.
I'll wager there's a little bit of the David Attenborough in all of us and these craggy, volcanic isles 1000 kilometres off the Ecuadorian coast conjure up precisely the right sort of imagery; namely the adventure-hungry wayfarer exploring the limits of the known world. That said, I have some confessions to make; I don't want to sleep in a damp cave, eat worms or go much more than a day without a hot shower. That's why the Galápagos is my sort of place!
Straddling the equator at 90o W, the Galápagos remained blissfully undiscovered until 1535 when the becalmed Bishop of Panama, Tomás de Berlanga, drifted 800 kilometres off course whilst travelling to Peru. Completely unimpressed by the apparent desolation of the islands, he wrote "… the earth is much like dross, worthless…". However, the good bishop was credited with naming the islands after the huge saddle-like tortoises living there.
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