Tourism in the Galapagos: Bringing the islands to the islanders
The Province, Sun Aug 9 2009, Page: C4
Half of locals in the Galapagos can't afford to visit their own islands. KW photo.
As a child, Juan Elaje experienced the tail end of an era of innocence in the Galapagos Islands.
It was the late ’80s, and tourism at the time was still largely a fisherman’s game. Travellers who made the journey by air or boat from mainland Ecuador to the remote, sparsely inhabited province 1,000 kilometres off the South American coast usually faced a choice of helmsmen of small fishing vessels, eager to be their guides.
These pioneering tourists witnessed the same sights that captivated the young English naturalist Charles Darwin when he made his historic voyage there on board a naval ship in 1835: Sea lions and penguins hunting in turquoise waves, yellow iguanas plodding across red volcanic soil, blue-footed boobies feeding their chicks and giant tortoises roaming freely.
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Kate Webb
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