Nick Webster
OVER the years many creatures have blocked roads I was attempting to travel down. The odd dog, a flock of sheep, a few cows which escaped their field, even a horse being ridden down a country lane which suddenly got spooked and sat, with an expensive crunch, on the car we were in.
But this was a first – traffic stopping for a tortoise making stately progress along the highway. This could be quite a wait...
And this was no ordinary obstacle in a half shell – a giant tortoise can grow 6ft in length and weigh up to half a tonne.
But we were delighted – it was the very first we’d seen after arriving in the extraordinary Galapagos Islands.
Just a few minutes later (we very gently drove around it), we were surrounded by dozens of the lumbering reptiles. As we pulled into Rancho El Manzillo, the look of childlike wonder on my face must have been reminiscent of Sam Neill’s awestruck Dr Alan Grant when he first saw the dinosaurs in Steven Spielberg’s epic – so no wonder the first words from our guide Blanca were “Welcome to Jurassic Islands are home to many fascinating species, such as marine iguanas Park”. At times it did feel like we’d gone back millions of years in time, rather than just flown 5,725 miles to Ecuador’s capital Quito, then another 900 miles out west to these 13 large – and many smaller – volcanic islands in the Pacific.
What looked like a pterodactyl in the sky was actually a magnificent silhouette of a frigatebird, which can stay aloft for weeks on end.
And while they’re not on the same scale, the beautifully ugly marine iguanas, their spines crested with spikes, are the closest to dinosaurs I have ever seen.
The Galapagos, named after an old Spanish word for tortoise, are where Charles Darwin began to develop his theory of evolution during a visit on the Beagle almost two centuries ago. He was at sea for five years, all of them seasick.
So it’s no surprise the Galapagos are all about the wild creatures, from the finches which got Darwin thinking about natural selection to the sea lions which laze unperturbed by human presence.
And that’s before you take to the water, with rays, sharks and giant turtles, penguins and blue-footed birds (they