I traveled to the Galápagos Islands expecting to be amazed. After all, these dry volcanic islands are the well-known locus of Darwinian legends. Yet on my recent visit to this archipelago where sea lions rule the coast, marine iguanas and crabs congregate on shoreline rocks, birds display oddly colored feet and amusing faces, and the hotel rooms (where they exist) face away from the sea (if there are windows at all), I found that despite the many peculiarities, I initially couldn't pinpoint precisely what makes the Galápagos so special.
While in Australia last year, I was constantly struck by how different the vegetation was from any place I'd ever seen, how much brighter and more beautiful the birds were, and how all the mammals looked and acted differently—possessing pouches and moving via hops, among other peculiarities. I expected the Galápagos's fauna and flora to be even stranger, but that was ...
