The Galapagos Islands: Like No Other Place in the World

There are few places in the world where wildlife is so easy to see and photograph as it is in the Galapagos Islands.

It’s easy for tourists to take good close-up photos of most Galapagos wildlife, but it’s prohibited to use flash, or touch, or otherwise bother wildlife, and you must stay within trails and other permitted spaces. Wardens are usually nearby and enforce all rules. Fred J. Eckert

“He looks like ET,” I remark to a friend as I gaze intently through my camera lens.

I am in the Galapagos Islands, 600 miles out in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of the South American country of Ecuador. I am lying in the dirt so that I can get an eye-level, close-up photo of the long-necked giant tortoise that is less than 10 feet in front of me.

A Galapagos giant tortoise can reach a height of nearly five feet and weigh as much as 500 pounds. Scientists believe these bizarre creatures can live for more than 150 years, perhaps even for as long as 200 years.

This means that the creature that I was photographing may have been hanging out in these parts during the American Civil War or even during the War of 1812.

There are few places in the world where wildlife is so easy to see and photograph as it is in the Galapagos Islands.