Strung across the equator about 600 miles (roughly 1,000 kilometers) west of South America, this volcanic archipelago sprawls over some 8,000 square kilometers of land. The protected marine area that encircles these islands is vastly larger, turning it into one of the world’s most significant oceanic reserves as well as a national park. Hardly untouched by man, they are home to a permanent population of around 30,000 mainly on islands with melodious names like Santa Cruz, San Cristóbal, Isabela, and Floreana.

Had I mentioned Charles Darwin above you would have known immediately that I am writing about the Galápagos Islands. While his voyage on The Beagle extended to nearly five years, the 26 year old Charles spent only 40 days here and half of that time he remained on board his ship. Also surprising is that Darwin did not mention finches in his diary. He does, however, show a good deal of excitement over the islands geology and strange creatures. Remote but not unexplored, the Galápagos Islands were annexed by Ecuador in 1832, three years before Darwin’s visit.

It is their isolation that I had inferred was the trigger for evolution by natural selection I scarcely imagined the essential roles played by plate tectonics or hotspot volcanism. A walk across the basalt lava fields of Sierra Negra volcano, watching sea turtles and blue‑footed boobies along the black basalt arches of Los Túneles, or walking through lava tunnels on Santa Cruz soon convinced me that these islands are home to hundreds of animal and plant species found nowhere else on Earth because the Galapagos Islands are unlike any other place on earth. Their composition, morphology, geography are distinctive. Geo‑thermal and volcanic activity — to say nothing about criss-crossing ocean currents — were set in motion by the Galápagos hotspot some 90 millions of years ago when dinosaurs reigned. Two hemispheres and three of the lithosphere’s tectonic plates—Nazca, Cocos, and Pacific—converge here. The first name of these islands —”Las Enchantas” — the Enchanted, or Bewitched, Islands fits perfectly.

Creatures here are so improbable that everyday objects were drafted to name them: saddleback tortoises, hammerhead sharks, chocolate-chip sea star. Improbabilities are everywhere. Galápagos is home to green forests of giant Opuntia cactus and pocket‑sized penguins bobbing in azul waters. Tree‑tall prickly pears dwarf bonsai‑scaled trees in a surreal, monochrome landscape broken by frozen black lava. Arriving by air, I landed on Baltra, once a secret WWII airbase, and soon learned of the opportunity to leave a postcard in an 18th‑century whalers’ barrel on nearby Floreana. Long‑lived tortoises (those alive today can easily reach the next century) carry themselves across some of the youngest land on Earth on Fernandina and Isabela. On that seahorse shaped island, the largest, convicts and political prisoners hauled piles of basalt, the black foundation of ocean floors, into the Wall of Tears. On Santa Cruz and elsewhere wild sea lions drape themselves over park benches, sleep atop picnic tables, and use shop thresholds for nap time. They seem to be doing their best to evolve into a new species of overgrown house cats. (Having walked directly into a sleeping sea lion within 90 minutes of arriving, I can report that they are not the deepest of sleepers.)

Volcanoes ride the Nazca Plate over a mantle plume—an ancient gigantic hotspot beneath the eastern Pacific. They rise from the seafloor and then slowly sink back into the Pacific as they travel eastward along a basalt conveyor belt. Eventually, they subduct under South America and contribute to the uplift of the Andes. Every inch of the place points to its marine setting. In the Galapagos National Park far more of what’s protected is salt water than soil.

Frigatebirds here are tuned to wind and rock due to their poor water proofing. They nest in low scrub on old ash and tuff. During mating season, males inflate red throat pouches. They pose and wait, almost motionless for hours, trying to attract females circling overhead. (You will not find anything else that is red in the Galapagos.)

Blue-Footed Boobies must appreciate this preoccupation of these fish-loving non swimming bullies. Frigates are the pirates of the Galapagos skies. I saw one steal from a mother Boobie trying to feed her demanding fledgling

Iguanas are everywhere. The endemic Marine iguana moves easily over sharp basalt bypassing colorful Sally Lightfoot crabs at waters edge. They slip into narrow surge channels to graze on algae. No where else do lizards feed in salt water. Despite this amazing adaptation Darwin thought they were hideous. Cold-blooded (evolution hasn’t gotten that far), they regularly warm themselves on land — by which I mean staircases. ledges, sidewalks, benches and even along walls. Piled on top of one another like stuffed toys in a child’s room, you can hardly avoid nearly trampling on one or half a dozen. They seem to have no predators as pelicans perch nearby focus on fresh fish, not lizard.

The larger land iguanas are found on dry sun-baked patches under a giant cactus. Large, yellow, and spiked, they eat cactus and therefore never drink. Darwin Finches flicker about unaware of their place in our understanding of the origin of species on these enchanted islands.

What struck me most about the Galapagos was not the strangeness of its creatures, though they are strange. It was the sense that geological force and biological life are not separate stories—but the same told in the slow drift of tectonic plates, the side-shuffe of the Sally Lightfoots, and the dance of the Blue Footed Boobies. The Enchanted Islands earned their name honestly: frigatebirds hanging motionless on invisible currents, iguanas still as statues, sea lions curled in doorways as if they owned the place. It all casts a spell.

Yet the enchantment, I came to understand, is not magic. It is geology. It is time. It is the long, patient work of a hotspot beneath the eastern Pacific, building islands and destroying islands; setting the stage on which evolution improvised.

The Galápagos remind us that scientific observation does not dispel wonder so much as relocate it, from the surface of things to the deep patterns that shape them. Perhaps that is the definition of enchantment. To visit here is a gift from nature as well as from the good people of Ecuador. I leave bewitched by what I have seen and, at the same time, astonished by how it came to be.

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