History Of The Islands
Until the middle of the twentieth century, the Galapagos Islands were thought to have been out of reach of the prehistoric coastal peoples of the continental mainland. Then, in 1947, Thor Heyerdahl proved otherwise with his famous voyage from Peru to Polynesia on a balsa raft, the Kon-Tiki . In 1953, his hunch excavations on the islands revealed over 130 shards of pre-Columbian pottery from coastal Peru and Ecuador, but no signs of permanent settlements, leading him to theorize that the islands were used as a seasonal fishing base. Other early visitors could have included the great Inca Tupac Yupanqui , grandfather of Atahualpa, who, according to the early Spanish chronicler, Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa, may have journeyed to the islands in about 1485 following reports that they held gold, returning almost a year later with "some black men, much gold, a chair made of brass and the skin and jawbone of a horse". This unlikely plunder casts doubts on the story's veracity, handing the prize of first documented visitor to Tomas de Berlanga , Bishop of Panama, whose ship ended up here after being swept off course en route to Peru in 1535. He and his men spent a desperate week on the islands, having to chew cactus pads for their water, before the winds picked up and he set sail again. Afterwards, he wrote about how water from a well they had dug "came out water saltier than that of the sea" and remarked that the earth was "like dross, worthless" and that the birds were "so silly that they do not know how to flee". He also noted the islands' "many seals, turtles, iguanas, tortoises", references picked up by a Flemish cartographer, Abraham Ortelius , who named the islands "Galapagos" (Spanish for "tortoises") on his map of 1574, Orbis Terrarum . The islands' other name at that time, Las Encantadas ("enchanted" or "bewitched"), came from the strong currents and swaths of deep mist that made landing here so difficult, as if the shore itself was being moved by unearthly powers.
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