Travel Guide Isla Floreana - Santa María

This island of 150 inhabitants, also called Santa María or isla Charles, is of great interest from a botanical point of view. The species are varied and its vegetation gives it the aspect of a tropical paradise. This island, the most southern of the archipelago, 4 hours by boat from Santa Cruz, has known a beginning of colonization worthy of an adventure novel with a tragic end. Two couples of German colonists settled successively in 1929 and 1932 in this uninhabited Eden. They are quickly joined and disturbed by the arrival of the eccentric "Baroness" Eloise von Wagner-Bosquet, flanked by her two lovers. She and one of them will soon be reported missing and the mystery has never been solved. This "Galapagos affair" even inspired George Simenon's novel Those of Thirst.The first mailbox in the Galapagos can be seen on Floreana, a barrel placed in Post Office Bay by whalers in the 18th century. Passing sailors would drop off and pick up their mail there. Since then, symbolically, the tradition continues and you too can put your postcards in the barrel! The tradition is to pick another card and mail it on your return.Lagoons and pink flamingos are the main sights. Puerto Velasco Ibarra, a village on the west coast, is the inhabited place of the island. It will certainly be by cruise boat that you will approach it. In general, the discovery starts from Punta Cormorán, in the north of the island.