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From time to time, a sea current brings death to the Galapagos Islands. El Niño, a meteorological phenomenon which is becoming notorious all over the world, heats up the waters on the Pacific Coast and causes terrible death and destruction to animal species.
But Galapagos is not dying. The arrival of El Niño is just a part of the ancient cycle of death and rebirth; a reminder of its genesis and a repetition on an infinitely smaller scale, of how life colonised these islands and transformed them into an earthly paradise.

At first glance, the landscape could not seem more desolate. It seems impossible that life could reach this land of volcanoes. Erosion: This was probably the first step.

Winds and water currents broke up the volcanic rock in a gradual process in which enough level of soil was formed for a seed to germinate. The wind and the water joined forces in this job. Not only did they erode the rock and so create soil but they also brought real specialists from the Continent that accelerated the process.

Algae and lichen split up the rock forming sediments and eventually soil. Then the chain became unstoppable.

The Galapagos arose from the sea, so unlike most islands, they never had any contact with the continent. All the living creatures that inhabit these islands had to cross a thousand kilometres of sea without fresh water and exposed to the equatorial sun to reach these new, desert lands.

Sea birds must have been the first visitors to the Galapagos Islands. They have more than sufficient strength to arrive here from the Continent and the Trade winds must have made the journey easier.

Land iguanas could well have arrived sailing on floating logs. This must have been the case at first, although they only managed to colonise the Galapagos when plant life provided them with a source of food.

Sea lions are the most common mammals in the Galapagos Islands. The floating islands that brought the reptiles hardly transported any mammals. There was no water available so the two weeks that it would take for a raft to drift from the continent to these islands was too long for most mammals to survive. But the sea lions did not come in rafts. They swam.

The giant turtles of the Galapagos are very resistant to drought. Their metabolism allows them to obtain water from stores of fat and from the plants they eat on their slow journeys. But when there is water available the big chelonians gather on the shores everyday and protect themselves from the sun and get rid of any parasites by taking baths and caking themselves in mud.


The Galapagos Islands are a living, ever-changing system which is historically and geographically isolated and has only been joined to the rest of the world by man, the most aggressive species on the planet.
Now all efforts are centred on a common aim, to conserve the isolation of the islands and their biological communities as far as is possible.
“Here, both in space and in time, we feel that we are closer to that great event, that mystery among mysteries which is the appearance of new creatures on the Earth”. Darwin

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