Puerto Villamil, Southern Isabela
The haunting beauty of this small town, nestled in the folds of a massive volcano and lined by spectacular white beaches, belies a harsh past that the town inhabitants are just recently beginning to put behind them.
The island had forever been uninhabited, until a man named Antonio Gil Quezada started a massive hacienda on the slopes of Sierra Negra Volcano that spread to form a settlement along the coast, later to become Villamil. He enticed hundreds of workers to the area to run the hacienda, which, in addition to conventional activities such as cattle ranching, undertook such varied enterprises as sulphur mining, salt mining and the brutal harvesting of “Galápagos” (the giant tortoises) for meat and oil and endemic fur seals for their pelts. After the death of Don Gil, the hacienda went to ruin, and the land was parcelled out among some of the workers who stayed, there reigning a kind of lawlessness in this isolated area that, to a degree, is still felt to this day.
In 1946, this remote, seemingly godforsaken place was chosen by the Ecuadorian government to be the site of the last, but the most infamous, in a string of penal colonies that had been set up in the Galápagos Archipelago. A few hundred prisoners were abandoned on the shores, to be overseen by a couple dozen guards, and these were given the task of building a massive wall of lava rocks that served no real purpose than that of providing cruel forced labour, under the sweltering tropical sun. By the time the colony drew to a close in 1959, none but a handful of the prisoners had survived, a few of which stayed on to add to the slowly growing population of the island.
Whilst the other inhabited Galápagos Islands became more and more popular with international tourism and science, the town of Villamil remained isolated and unknown, its population surviving off fishing and farming, the former often including highly illegal practices such as shark-finning. The rules and regulations of the National Park seemed not to apply here, as even the hunting and eating of giant tortoises is still occasionally practiced.
Lately, however, the outside world has been discovering the charm of this sleepy little village of sandy streets; as well as the warmth and welcome of the Isabeleños, apparent everywhere despite their harsh past. Tourism has begun to add to the economy of the area, and is teaching people here the value of conservation. The branches of the Charles Darwin Foundation and the Galápagos National Park have set up incredibly successful Environmental Education Centres (CEAs), and some of the children are becoming real leaders in conservation in their community – starting with their families.
After a fascinating day spent exploring the area in a variety of fashions, some of the local community joined us on board for our evening cocktail hour and dinner. This included members of the “Friends of the Tortoises” club, local children that gave us a presentation on the importance of the “Galápagos” and their efforts towards the preservation of the species. It was particularly fun to see how many of our younger guests and the kids from Isabela related instantly, even though coming from such different backgrounds – could this be due to a shared love for the Galápagos: recently acquired in the first case, lifelong in the latter?
The haunting beauty of this small town, nestled in the folds of a massive volcano and lined by spectacular white beaches, belies a harsh past that the town inhabitants are just recently beginning to put behind them.
The island had forever been uninhabited, until a man named Antonio Gil Quezada started a massive hacienda on the slopes of Sierra Negra Volcano that spread to form a settlement along the coast, later to become Villamil. He enticed hundreds of workers to the area to run the hacienda, which, in addition to conventional activities such as cattle ranching, undertook such varied enterprises as sulphur mining, salt mining and the brutal harvesting of “Galápagos” (the giant tortoises) for meat and oil and endemic fur seals for their pelts. After the death of Don Gil, the hacienda went to ruin, and the land was parcelled out among some of the workers who stayed, there reigning a kind of lawlessness in this isolated area that, to a degree, is still felt to this day.
In 1946, this remote, seemingly godforsaken place was chosen by the Ecuadorian government to be the site of the last, but the most infamous, in a string of penal colonies that had been set up in the Galápagos Archipelago. A few hundred prisoners were abandoned on the shores, to be overseen by a couple dozen guards, and these were given the task of building a massive wall of lava rocks that served no real purpose than that of providing cruel forced labour, under the sweltering tropical sun. By the time the colony drew to a close in 1959, none but a handful of the prisoners had survived, a few of which stayed on to add to the slowly growing population of the island.
Whilst the other inhabited Galápagos Islands became more and more popular with international tourism and science, the town of Villamil remained isolated and unknown, its population surviving off fishing and farming, the former often including highly illegal practices such as shark-finning. The rules and regulations of the National Park seemed not to apply here, as even the hunting and eating of giant tortoises is still occasionally practiced.
Lately, however, the outside world has been discovering the charm of this sleepy little village of sandy streets; as well as the warmth and welcome of the Isabeleños, apparent everywhere despite their harsh past. Tourism has begun to add to the economy of the area, and is teaching people here the value of conservation. The branches of the Charles Darwin Foundation and the Galápagos National Park have set up incredibly successful Environmental Education Centres (CEAs), and some of the children are becoming real leaders in conservation in their community – starting with their families.
After a fascinating day spent exploring the area in a variety of fashions, some of the local community joined us on board for our evening cocktail hour and dinner. This included members of the “Friends of the Tortoises” club, local children that gave us a presentation on the importance of the “Galápagos” and their efforts towards the preservation of the species. It was particularly fun to see how many of our younger guests and the kids from Isabela related instantly, even though coming from such different backgrounds – could this be due to a shared love for the Galápagos: recently acquired in the first case, lifelong in the latter?
