If you want to feel like David Attenborough, this is about as close as it gets. Today, a trip to the Galapagos is an unparalleled experience of nature and wildlife. Three hundred years after Berlanga, a young Charles Darwin arrived on the islands, putting together the studies and research that would inform the development and publication of his epic theory of evolution by natural selection nearly 25 years later. Over the ensuing centuries, the islands became a bolthole for pirates, and later, a pantry for whalers and fur sealers, who pilfered so many giant tortoises for their long voyages at sea they single-handedly wiped out several species and left the rest teetering on the edge of extinction. The islands first came to attention in the western world in 1535, when a ship carrying a bishop from Panama named Tomas Berlanga was carried off course by currents en route to Peru. The Galapagos Islands are the stuff of legend: a tiny archipelago of volcanic peaks in the Pacific harbouring species of wildlife and plants found nowhere else on Earth. To celebrate the life of Lonesome George and his extraordinary homeland, today’s post is a flashback to our visit and a round-up of the island magic that makes a trip to the Galapagos the experience of a lifetime. We ‘met’ George during our visit to the Galapagos in 2011 over 100 years old and described as one of the rarest creatures on Earth, the encounter stayed with us. Sadly, his death also marked the end of the line for his giant tortoise subspecies. Today is the fourth anniversary of the death of Lonesome George, the last Pinta Island tortoise in the Galapagos Islands – and the world.
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