Galápagos

Myth has it that halfway through the fifteenth century Tupac Yupanqui (grandfather of the Quito Inca, Atahualpa) made an extraordinary voyage to some lost islands.

Almost one hundred years later in 1535 the Dominican monk Tomás de Berlanga was shipwrecked on some deserted islands populated only by sea lions, turtles, iguanas and tortoises. He baptized the islands, "Las Encantadas". The present name "Galapagos" is Spanish for tortoise.

For the next two centuries the Galapagos were a hideaway for Dutch and English buccaneers and whalers. Over the years, they stacked thousands of the giant tortoises alive, one on top of another, in ships holds and slaughtered them, as they were required.

Charles Darwin landed here in 1835 during his now famous voyage on the HMS BEAGLE. His observations became the cornerstone of his theory of evolution by natural selection and it is these theories that lie at the root of our present attitude to the universe.

He wrote "The natural history of this archipelago is very remarkable: it seems to be a little world in itself; the greater number of its inhabitants, both vegetable and animal, being found nowhere else

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They vary anywhere from one to five days and can be geared towards specialized interests, such as birdwatching, native handcrafts, botanical and archaeological explorations, or just relaxation.