Tourism in Galapagos – by Gary

I first came to Galapagos in the mid 80s in tiny Orzel, anchoring in Academy Bay on the island of Santa Cruz.  It’s the same place where we are now.  While memories of back then are hazy, I recall a quiet, dusty main-street curving around the head of the bay, a seedy Port Captain’s office, shanty like shops, houses and some low key tourism.  At that time about 18,000 visitors were coming to Galapagos each year. Anchored on one side of the bay next to a low basalt cliff, I could watch the marine iguanas diving under the boat to feed on algae, or walk along the cliff-top through the rugged chasms and tunnels left by former lava flows. On the opposite side of the bay the Charles Darwin Foundation opened its doors to the public every Friday afternoon with a seminar featuring some aspect of their current research program. Cruising to such a remote destination felt like real eco-tourism, though I think the term still awaited invention.

Needless to say, much has changed!  The Galapagos Archipelago has since emerged as one of the world’s premier ‘eco-tourism’ destinations, attracting more than 180,000 visitors annually, most of them being international visitors.  As the most popular tourism destination in Ecuador Galapagos is a major foreign currency earner for the country contributing hundreds of millions of dollars to the national economy.  In-order to develop the industry the islands have been the focus of major public and private investment.

But I surprised myself!  I really like the town that Academy Bay (now called Puerto Ayora) has become – it’s vibrant.  It’s a tourist hub, but also a very ‘lived-in’ town, with a waterfront full of locals; volley-ballers, skateboarders, bike riders, craft competitors, promenaders, even beauty contestants.  Much of the architecture is new, stylish, modern.  Of tourists, yes there are plenty, but about them there is generally an air of energy, engagement and enthusiasm about what they are seeing and doing.  There is no MacDonalds, KFC or Hilton Hotel.  Instead everywhere around the town is the amazing, tame wildlife that Galapagos is so famous for, seals, pelicans, noddies, iguanas, boobies and of course, those finches.

Some of the architecture in Puerto Ayora is stunning.

Volley ball players, the pleasant main drag and the very pleasant beauty contestants

The local fish market features people, fish, flies, pelicans and yes.. a seal!

Of institutions I found less to get excited about.  A phalanx of government bureaucrats boarded our boat on arrival, agents, inspectors, officers you name it – eight of them – all with their hands out to relieve us of well over US$1,000, much of it in exchange for some meaningless, feel-good ‘conservation’ measures.  One chappie, the quarantine officer, wanted $150 to ‘fumigate’ the boat.  Following payment he squeezed some cockroach bate out of a tube (one that you can buy in any supermarket in this part of the world) and then wrote out a pretty certificate.  Another, the ‘park inspector’, wanted $100 so he could ask us if we had a black water tank.  Did he check it out, did he see if it was connected?  Nah!  The Charles Darwin Foundation’s central plank of community engagement now seems to be an interpretation hall featuring a hefty load of government and institutional propaganda and some interesting misinformation.  On the positive side the foundation has had some encouraging success with the eradication of some feral pest species and the recovery of some endangered species.

Perhaps even more positively, the Galapagos National Park Service seems to be using the $100 it collects from each inbound tourist to good effect, building some fine visitor infrastructure including walking trails and interpretation, carrying out extensive feral pest control measures and most importantly, strongly regulating tour operators (do I detect the dreaded hand of a planner?).  Tourism here has two main components, land-based and tour-boat based. Puerto Ayora boasts all manner of shore-side accommodation from luxury apartments to cheap hostels, but it is all small scale.  The bay bustles with tour boats coming and going; some small carrying perhaps 10-16 guests, others much larger and luxurious, but at least not huge, carrying between 40 and 100 guests. Visits within the park are tightly controlled by the park service, each mini bus/boat must carry an on-board, knowledgeable and trained guide and can visit only the designated sites around the island group.  There are only 149 such designated sites: 70 land sites and 79 scuba-diving or snorkeling sites. Small groups are allowed to visit in 2–4 hour shifts only, accompanied by their guide.

Tour boats: the good, the bad and the ugly.

In Puerto Ayora we are anchored in much the same place as I was first time around, but with so many tour boats and such a much larger town the water clarity has been badly affected. You can no longer see the iguanas diving under the boat.  You can no longer walk the cliff-top either; it has all been privatised and fenced, with classy water front residential and restaurant developments.

The fully privatized cliff-top.  Most of the island chain is unavailable for development (97.5% reserved) so prime waterfront like this must be very valuable.

But again, it’s a case of swings and roundabouts.  Current levels of tourism are no-where near as destructive as some previous uses.  For instance the Galapagos Giant Tortoise, pre-contact numbered perhaps 250,000, reduced to a low of around 3,000 in the 1970s, but thanks to conservation efforts has now recovered to around 19,000. A goat eradication program on Pinta, Santiago and northern Isabela islands has achieved vegetation rehabilitation outcomes that are little short of miraculous.

Way back in the beginning of all this tourism bonanza the Charles Darwin Foundation:

“... felt strongly that nature tourism represented the economic activity that was by far the most compatible with conservation of the archipelago’s biological diversity, evolutionary and ecological processes, and environment.”

Certainly nature-based tourism has been enormously successful in economic terms, but are the other outcomes being achieved?  From my reading I gather the jury is still out, but generally I’m impressed and optimistic.

As you can see reflected in the vegetation, the more recent lava flows skirting the coastline of Santa Cruz have practically no soil development or moisture holding ability.

For most visitors it’s the unique and uniquely tame animals that make Galapagos such an extraordinary place.

Anybody can become a wildlife photographer with these remarkably tame animals

Nina and friends

But for my money the marine iguanas are the most extraordinary of the lot.

Tourism Timeline
1535        the Bishop of Panama, sailing to Peru discovers the islands
1807        sailor Patrick Watkins is marooned becoming the first known resident
1835        Charles Darwin visits in the Beagle
1950s a little over 1,000 people live in the islands
1959 the archipelago becomes a national park with 97.5% of it protected
1969 organized tourism kick starts with a regular air service and tours
1970        5,000 visitors arrive
1978 Galapagos is declared one of the first 12 World Heritage sites
late 70s guidelines suggest tourist numbers be 12,000 pa – soon raised to 25,000
1980 to 1985 17,500 visitors arrive, growth flat
1986        a 70,000km² marine reserve is declared over the surrounding ocean
1990        41,000 visitors arrive
1998        the population of Galapagos triples from 1974, rising to 15,311.
2000        72,000 visitors arrive
2005        122,000 visitors arrive
present    180,000 visitors arrive annually.  There are more than 26,000 residents – most have work, mostly in tourist related jobs.  There are 1,300 registered invasive plant species.  Introduced animal species adding to habitat damage include horses, cattle, donkeys, goats, sheep, pigs, dogs, cats, poultry, rats, mice, ants, cockroaches and assorted parasites.  Conservation remains a high priority...

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A Walk in Galapagos - by Nina Willmott

At 3pm it was a nice and warm, but not too hot. We walked up the main road, which is very neat and pretty although there are stalls advertising tours all over the place every five steps. If you go down some of the side streets you can tell there isn't that much money in the place and most of it is spent keeping the main road and promenade nice.

We walked to the start of a track that said it was to Tortuga Bay (Turtle Bay) and would take about 45minutes and was 3km long. We decided to go down it. At the start of the track you have to go up a steep incline and across a huge crack in the rock. Dad thought it was probably made when a lava flow cooled down and shrank and then split because of the shrinking. The crack was about 10m across and 20m deep and was bridged by a pile of rubble that had been pushed in and then flattened on top and paved. On the other side of the crevasse there was a big fence topped with spikes and barbed wire with an open gate in the middle. There was also a big sign that said the track closed at 6pm. We walked on.

 The track with cracks and crevasses either side.

The terrain was really rugged, with a crack or crevasse every three meters and pretty much all the plants had thorns on them. We saw cactuses that grew out of rocks and seed pods on the ground that I couldn't figure out what tree they came from. I speculated with Dad about how Charles Darwin ever got anywhere here. Zeke suggested that someone came with him from the ship with a really big machete.

Some of the things we saw along the way

I thought back to the day before when we went up into the highlands and went down a track Mum had read about. It was fairly well used and we saw about 20 tortoises. As we were walking down that track I came up with a way to scale tortoises by size. Pebbles are the tiny little baby ones, stones are the medium sized ones, boulders are the really big adults and Dad suggested another size on the end, which is FBRs. I'm not gonna tell you what the F means and you can probably guess it any way but the B and R are stand for big rock.

Pebbles, these are only about 10cm long.

Left, boulder, this guy would be about 1m long. Right, FBR, he would be about a meter and a half long.

Anyway we had bought our snorkel and flippers in the hope that Tortuga Bay would offer some snorkelling opportunities. When we finally got to the beach we discovered a long stretch of sand with the wind blowing big waves onto shore, where they crashed onto the beach. It was totally inappropriate for snorkelling. We had asked a guy at the entrance whether there was any snorkelling and he said there was, all you had to do was turn right and walk down the beach and around the corner and you would find a sheltered cove where you could snorkel. It was a long way to the corner but we decided to do it anyway.

On the way we saw a marine iguana determinedly swimming out to sea. When a big roller came in he would duck down under it, then bob up on the other side and keep swimming until the next wave came. Just before the bend in the beach there was a rocky spit that pointed out towards the sea but at the end curved around and created a small bit of shelter where mangroves could grow. In the mangroves the were literally mounds of marine iguanas lazing in the sunshine.

A Marine Iguana mound.

 We went around the corner and found a big well sheltered cove surrounded by emerald trees with a beautiful beach that was made out of the whitest, finest sand I’d ever found. It looked great except for the fact that the water was a murky, brown green colour. There was a sign on the beach that said mangroves are really important to the ecosystem etc, etc, but at the end it added that they are an important resting place for three different types of shark.

We plunged into the water for a snorkel. But we couldn't see anything really at all and it gives me the creeps when I don't know what is around me or below me. As we were swimming across the bay I told Dad about the sign and he said that hammerhead shark babies shelter here until they're big enough to leave. I was not thrilled to learn this as I very much doubted that they swam here on their own. Mum and me were not enjoying it very much so we turned around and went to the beach. We sat in the shallows and watched Zeke and Dad to see if they got eaten. Unfortunately they didn't.

When they got back Mum gave us each a muesli bar. I was quietly eating mine in the water when Dad called me. He was sitting on the ground under a tree surrounded by Darwin's Finches! As I watched he broke off a bit of his muesli bar, held it out palm up and a finch flew onto it and ate some, then another one flew onto it and shoved the other one off. They were the tamest birds I have ever seen. I tried it and although animals often avoid children I had exactly the same result as Dad. It was amazing! I called Zeke up from the water and although he ran up, none of the finches took fright and flew away. We scrounged a few crumbs for him and he had exactly the same result as me. Those finches were fearless! There was one particularly bossy female and she just kept on flying back for more. She would shove at males that happened to be on your hand at the time off and start hogging all the crumbs. They were like miniature B52s and their feet, as they gripped your fingers, didn't feel at all like you expected them to feel - they had a firm grip but they were feather weight.

Darwins Finches

They are just so tame!

And feather weight!  Behind me you can see the sheltered cove behind where the sharks are.

As we were walking back along the beach Mum noticed turtle tracks on the sand above the tide line. It was quite obviously a beach were female turtles haul themselves out of the water to lay their eggs. We decided that this was the reason why it was called Turtle Beach and why there was such a big fence at the entrance. We hurried back as we had no desire to be locked inside all night.

Today was amazing, seeing lava cracks, speculating about how Darwin got around, iguana watching, snorkelling, feeding finches and hiking 10km down a track in a tropical afternoon really wears you out, I'm gonna sleep well to night!

Facts about Galapagos:

• It is the only place in the world where penguins live in the wild above the equator.
• There are more than twice the amount of weed species than native or endemic species.
• Avocados were second on a list of top 10 weed species, this surprised me as they are not very high on my idea of a top 10 list of evil pest plants.
• The Nazca tectonic plate, on which Galapagos is situated, is moving under the South American plate at a rate of 6.4cm per year. 
• This is the only place in the world were you can find flightless cormorants in the wild. 
• Darwin was actually a geologist when he came here and he was amazed buy the volcanoes, not the animals, although he did notice the tortoises and woodpeckers differ between islands and someone had to point out the finches to him.

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Panama City – by Gary

We reckon this to be a city of many faces – making it an interesting place.  Here's a little of how we saw it.

Old Panama City
Panama City is surprisingly old - founded back in 1519.  Originally it was Spanish of course.  The Spaniards unloaded their Peruvian gold here, mule training it across the narrow isthmus to Portobelo where it was on-shipped back home.

This key role ensured the town’s susceptibility to pirate attack – and guess what?  Pirates attacked.  In 1671 Henry Morgan sacked and looted the place before destroying it with fire.  This very oldest part of the city was never rebuilt.  Today it is still a collection of ruins, a World Heritage site on the western fringes of the current city.

Old Panama City: it’s a ruin.  The cathedral tower, bottom-right, is the most impressive thing still standing, it has become a city icon.

New Old Panama City
Instead of rebuilding the city fathers decided to move to a new site about 8 kilometres to the east, quite close to where the present day canal reaches the Pacific Ocean.  This new city, now the Old Quarter, founded in 1673, is one of the fastest gentrifying areas I have seen anywhere in the world.   Latter-day pirates, developers, have moved in and the poor are being unceremoniously moved on.  But the developers are doing a nice job in this the city’s second World Heritage listed area.  I reckon it will only be a few years and this part of town will rival Cartagena for its glossy presentation of Spanish colonial architecture in a bustling tourism enclave.  More power to them!

New Old Panama City: known as Casco Viejo (the Old Quarter) it’s a place of rapid redevelopment and gentrification...

... it has some geogeous architecture.

New Panama City
But modernism is where the city is really at - Panama City boasts a truly impressive sky-line.  Most of the buildings are residential towers, but some are business orientated.  Edged by a beautiful waterfront boulevard complete with green sward, walking and cycling tracks, serviced by a well-run metropolitan bus service, an impressive highway system and an underground rapid-transit system under construction, this is a city on the move.

New Panama City:  It’s an impressive skyline, ... when you can see it.

 

Highways snake into the haze of the city across the shores of the Pacific Ocean.

Modern, air-conditioned buses run services
throughout the city – a fare costs 25c and is transferable.

Some of the architecture is dazzling.

A Mix of Cultures
The city is home to a diverse mix of peoples; Spanish, Indigenous Americans, Africans, Chinese and expatriate US citizens all mingle here, giving it a cosmopolitan feel.

A burly bloke of African descent stops to play in a city street with some kids of Chinese descent.

Women from the San Blas, many of whom still wear traditional clothing.

The Canal
The canal begets everything else; it’s the nation’s economic mainstay, the city’s later-day goldmine.  And while this is Central America, so the disbursement of this wealth is not exactly equitable, even the poor seem to be doing reasonably well here.  I reckon the city fathers must be concerned by talk of the Chinese constructing a second, sea level canal across Nicaragua.  But in any case that is still years in to the future.  Meanwhile we were truly impressed by the extent of infrastructural investment - the decision makers seem to be applying some wisdom to the spending of canal revenues.

Tourism is quite big in Panama – but even that focuses heavily on the canal.  As example we took this photo from the viewing deck of a magnificent new canal visitor centre.  

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