Life upended
Pandemic makes an isolated world even lonelier on the Galapagos Islands
SAN CRISTOBAL, Ecuador — Before the coronavirus, sudden lifethreatening ailments among tourists, fishermen and others on the Galapagos Islands were considered so rare that hospitals didn’t have a single intensive care unit bed.
Now, officials are racing to equip medical teams on the remote islands with breathing machines while also trying to stanch an economic crisis that has left many of the 30,000 residents jobless.
The island chain’s famous isolation is now heightening its hardship.
For seven weeks now, not a single tourist has arrived at the UNESCO World Heritage site that inspired Charles Darwin. Studies of the archipelago’s unique marine and avian wildlife have halted. And residents are making urgent changes, such as growing carrots, peppers and tomatoes at home so they don’t go hungry.
“Galapagos is the land of evolution,” said Joseline Cardoso, whose small family-run hotel on Santa Cruz island is empty. “The animals have adapted and we humans cannot be the exception.”
Ecuador is among Latin American nations hit hardest by COVID-19, and authorities on the Galapagos Islands believe their first cases probably came from Guayaquil, the coastal city where hospitals turned away patients and the dead were left in homes for days.
The storied islands have been relatively shielded by what happens 600 miles away on the mainland. A financial crisis two decades ago left many Ecuadorians penniless but steady international tourism kept the Galapagos afloat. Last year, over 275,000 people came to see the swimming iguanas, giant tortoises and birds with webbed feet the color of blue cotton candy.
Islanders rely on military aircraft to ferry the critically ill to Quito or Guayaquil. Many go to the mainland for appointments, and some hire doctors to fly in for major events like childbirth.
Locals like to joke that, “In the Galapagos, it is prohibited to get sick.”
But the coronavirus has upended any sense of island immunity.
The islands’ first four cases were diagnosed in late March, all believed to have come from Guayaquil before travel was cut off. Soon after, the first islandassociated death was announced: a worker in his 60s who had been on the Celebrity Flora yacht and fell ill after returning to Quito.
There are now more than 100 cases in the Galapagos, including about 50 crew members still aboard the Celebrity Flora, a luxury ship operated by a subsidiary of Royal Caribbean Cruises. It docked in time for passengers to get flights home.
Authorities have scrambled to equip hospitals, where there are only four ICU beds and a lab to do virus tests. The Charles Darwin Foundation donated two of the new ventilators. In addition to military transports, a police aircraft is being mobilized.
Most of the cases have been mild, with only two people hospitalized.
The bigger blow has been to tourism: At least 800 visitors usually arrive daily, and officials estimate the islands already have lost at least $50 million, a quarter of the expected annual income.
“The base of our economy has entirely collapsed,” said Norman Wray, governor of the islands. “This is completely changing the future of tourism in the Galapagos.”
Ivan Lopez, a guide and scuba teacher, was taking tourists around the islands when Ecuador ordered a lockdown. He was told to get off the boat and immediately was jobless. A 39-year-old father of two, he believes he can stretch his savings for six months but doesn’t know what he will do if the crisis drags on.
Already-high prices in supermarkets have skyrocketed. When Lopez searched recently for disinfectant, he found alcohol at $40 a gallon. The islands largely rely on cargo ships, which have been slower to arrive.
“If the ships stop coming, it will be chaos,” he said. “We won’t have anything to eat.”
Cardoso, who dreamed up her six-room hotel as part of a student project, said her new reality feels like a nightmare she’s yet to wake up from. The hotel is usually 75% occupied throughout the year, but all reservations have been canceled through July.
“To be with an empty hotel breaks your heart,” she said.
How soon the Galapagos Islands might be able to reopen is unclear. Ecuador’s government is allowing for a gradual opening in three stages. But the final stage is not a full return to normal and does not call for resuming national or international flights.
For many islanders, the pandemic has left them to meditate on their relationships with nature, industry and travel. Some wonder if they should continue to remain so dependent on tourism, while others say it highlights the need for self-sufficiency.
For Cardoso, the answer lies in the story of the finches, penguins and tortoises who share the islands with them.
“We have to put in practice the lesson of our history,” she said. “We have to adapt.”