Like much of the wildlife in the Galapagos, a Blue-footed Boobie on Española is ambivalent to humans.

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At Pinnacle Rock on Bartolomé Island, Darwin compares the frozen throat of an ancient volcano with the active one of a tourist.

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You can get big, inexpensive beers at this internet cafe on San Cristobal. One thing you can not get: internet access. The customers are just looking busy. Except for Darwin, who is just looking.

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Beach on Española Island, Galapagos.

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San Cristóbal was the first island that Darwin visited in 1835; today local residents of the island’s largest town, Puerto Baquerizo Moreno, take an evening stroll along the waterfront and are amused to find Darwin pondering the contours of their archipelago in a water fountain.

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Darwin checks out the view from the volcanic crest of Bartolomé Island, an extinct volcano that provides an extraordinary view of surrounding islands.

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In his notes, Darwin referred to marine iguana’s with relative revulsion. “The black Lava rocks on the beach are frequented by large (2-3 ft), disgusting clumsy Lizards. They are as black as the porous rocks over which they crawl & seek their prey from the Sea. I call them ‘imps of darkness’. They assuredly well become the land they inhabit.”

The cold-blooded reptiles are the only lizard that has evolved the ability to live and forage in the sea.

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On Darwin’s 1835 visit to Galapagos, it was his identification of three distinct species of mockingbird that initially led him to question the stability of species. On this trip, he comes face-to-face with a fourth species: the Hood mockingbird. This one, by far the most aggressive of an already curious species, will explore almost anything in search of the most rare commodity on the islands: fresh water. This one examines an abandoned albatross egg along with Darwin.

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Over the eons of time, the shifting currents of the Galapagos made immigration to the islands a difficult and rare occurrence. Today, visitors from all over the world splash ashore hourly. Visits to unpopulated islands such as Bartolomé Island, however, are strictly regulated by the national park service of Ecuador, which manages 97.5 percent of the Galapagos Archipelago.

Bartolomé Island is one of the few places left in the Galapagos where penguins can still be found, and we saw just one lonely looking penguin standing on the edge of the bay beneath Pinnacle Point.

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A sea lion pup spots Darwin coming ashore, and flops over to properly welcome him to South Plaza Island, a small, crescent shaped island that is less than 500 feet wide. Today about 1,000 sea lions make the island their home.

Darwin landed on just four islands during his visit to the Galapagos aboard the HMS Beagle in 1835.

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