Iguana Land (part 1)

'Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?' is one of the most famous paintings of the French artist Paul Gauguin, created in Tahiti at the end of the 19th century. The answers to the first and last questions remain a mystery and depend on your religious and scientific beliefs. However, thanks to Charles Darwin and his scientific book 'On the Origin of Species' published during the same century about the Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection, we know that the creation of the different species on the planet was not a single event. It was rather a process of changes from one form into many different ones.

During Charles Darwin's nearly five-year voyage around the world as a naturalist aboard Her Majesty's Ship Beagle, he spent only five weeks on an archipelago of volcanic islands, distributed on either side of the equator in the Pacific Ocean around 1,000 km west of the closest landmass of South America - the Galapagos Islands. It is this short visit though that had a tremendous impact on his scientific work.

He noticed that the unique species of the archipelago were similar from island to island, but each had managed to change and adapt to their environment in different ways. For example, the finches - known today as Darwin's finches - had different beaks and body shapes to make them fitter to survive on the food available on each island.

Darwin realised that in order to survive in different environments, the same species of animals had evolved in different ways, resulting over time in the creation of new species.

The Galapagos Islands, today part of the Republic of Ecuador and a UNESCO World Heritage Site, consist of 18 main islands, 3 smaller islands and 107 rocks and islets.

Some of them are pretty remote, and you can only imagine how difficult it must have been to explore them when the first Europeans arrived there in the 16th century.

Darwin referred to the islands as the 'land of craters' because of their volcanic origin - there are currently 9 active volcanoes there! You can see it in the craters and lava tunnels of Santa Cruz Island and the black beaches of Floreana Island.

Also, ‘galapago’ is an old Spanish word for ‘tortoise’. So, the name ‘Galapagos Islands’ literally means ‘Islands of the Tortoises’.

However, of all the amazing endemic animals that you will spot on the islands, the most impressive ones in our view were the iguanas! This is why we will always remember this place as Iguana Land!

The magic started at the airport, which had its own island - iguanas crossing the path between the airplanes and the luggage zone, sea lions sprawled at the port of Santa Cruz Island, gorgeous frigatebirds gliding in the blue sky… And this was only the beginning…

Depending on which of the two main airports you will fly to, you will inevitably spend some time on one of the two most 'populated' islands of the archipelago - San Cristobal or Santa Cruz.

They are far away from crowded though - Puerto Ayora, the most populous city on the Galapagos Islands located on Santa Cruz Island, has only around 15,000 inhabitants…

While simply strolling around the tiny city, we came across marine iguanas lazing on the grey stones, baby sea lions suckling from their relaxing moms, pelicans watching out for fish thrown away by the fishermen, and bright red rock crabs crawling out of the ocean.

Puerto Ayora was more than a wildlife spot though!

It may be far away from everything, but the delicious homemade food that we found in the local unpretentious canteens exceeded our expectations! We could not miss the salty or sweet humitas from the local bakery, consisting of maize dough and corn, wrapped in a corn husk and slowly steamed. They were warm and delicious!

While we were on Santa Cruz Island, we also hiked to Tortuga Bay along some gorgeous giant cactus trees.

The beach with baby iguanas at the end of the path was breathtaking.

We swam in the cool water around the mangroves where we came across some pelicans and baby sharks!

This was also a great place for spotting some lava lizards, the famous finches and, last but not least, many marine iguanas who looked like cute black devils.

The marine iguanas are truly some of the most striking animals you will ever see and will remind you of long gone or magical creatures, like the dinosaurs or the dragons. They are found only on the Galapagos Islands and are the only modern lizards with marine habits in the world. The marine iguanas have the ability to live and feed in the ocean by nibbling algae off the rocks, diving sometimes as deep as 30 metres and spending up to one hour underwater. After visiting the relatively cold water to feed, they need to warm up and bring their body temperature back to normal levels. This is why you will see all the time immobile marine iguanas (sometimes a group of them standing on each others' bodies to share their warmth...), soaking up the sunshine on the beaches or blending with the lava rocks. It is quite difficult to spot them on the black stones and you need to be really careful not to step on their long tails!

The marine iguanas are probably the animals that had to evolve in the most remarkable way. Their mainland ancestors lived in the trees, eating fruits. Once they arrived in Galapagos from the mainland, after having been clinging onto fallen trees or reeds for several weeks at sea, they had to adapt to eating algae and living on rocky shores. Because the marine iguanas feed underwater, they ingest a large amount of saltwater. In order to prevent dehydration, they must expel the salt without expelling the water, so they had developped special glands extracting the salt from their blood. The salt is expelled from their bodies in a process, which looks like sneezing. This explains the marine iguana's cranium that has an unusually large nasal cavity as compared to other iguanas, in order to accommodate these large salt glands.

The marine iguanas are seen on most of the islands, but, similar to other animals, their appearance varies depending on their habitat!

The highlands of Santa Cruz are also home to many giant tortoises. The size of these majestic animals is really impressive! They can reach weights of over 400kg and lengths of 1.8m - the size of a human being! They are also among the world's longest-living animals, with an average lifespan of 100 years or more! One of the tortoises that Darwin had collected died in 2006 - her estimated age was 175 years!

Scientists believe that the first tortoises arrived to Galapagos many million years ago, by drifting on vegetation rafts or on their own from the South American coast.

These gentle giants were once abundant on several islands, but early whaling ships and pirates often carried them off. The giant tortoises could hibernate and survive without food or water for a year or more in a ship's hold, providing fresh meat, oil and even drinking water held in their necks to the sailors, who had been away from land for a while. The Floreana species, for example, was still abundant when Charles Darwin visited the island in 1835, but by 1846 it was completely extinct.

The second scourge for the tortoises were the goats. In 1959, fishermen who wanted fresh meat on their fishing voyages released three goats on Pinta Island. The tiny goat population exploded and devastated the vegetation - food for most local species, including the tortoises. Lonesome George, who was the sole remaining Pinta Island tortoise, was found dead in 2012, which marked the extinction of the island’s species of tortoises.

Today, thanks to recent conservation efforts, there is hope for the survival of the remaining Galapagos giant tortoises. We visited the breeding centre of the Charles Darwin Research Station. It is home to different subspecies of giant tortoises from across the archipelago, ranging in age from new hatchlings to fully grown adults. There we met Diego, an over 100-year-old tortoise of the endangered species from Española Island, who has been saving his kind from extinction - it has fathered approximately 800 descendants!