Coffee producing area of Giant Turtle Island, Ecuador

Coffee treasures from the hometown of giant turtles

The best Ecuadorian coffee is grown on St. Cristobal Island in the Galapagos Islands, which has the unique natural geographical conditions for giving birth to the best quality coffee in the world. A cup of Galapagos coffee, like the beautiful scenery of the Galapagos Islands, is sure to impress you.

In the mid-15th century, there were legends about enchanted mysterious islands among fishermen fishing in the western Pacific Ocean of South America. It is said that the islands can sometimes be seen clearly from a distance, but when the ship approaches, it disappears again; sometimes it looks like a galleon, sometimes it shows the shape of a witch. Fishermen call these islands "Devil Island", thinking that they may be ruled by demons like the sea banshees in the Odyssey. The island, which fishermen call "Magic Island", is now the Galapagos Islands.

In 1535, Frey Thomas de Belanga of Spain and others stumbled upon the Galapagos Islands. Thomas was born in 1487 on the Douro River in the province of Soria, Spain, and was the fourth bishop of Panama at that time. He was ordered to go to Peru. When his ship set sail from Panama on February 23, under the impact of a strong current, they were taken to the unknown sea, and on March 10, they discovered a small island in the Galapagos Islands. At that time, there were only two days of fresh water left on the ship, and the sailors landed in lifeboats and found a large number of seals, sea turtles, giant tortoises that could carry people, and iguanas that looked like venomous snakes, but they did not find fresh water, so they sailed to another larger island more than 20 kilometers away. As there was still no wind, it took them several days to get there, and the water ran out quickly and they had to starve, including the horses on the boat without grass.

When Thomas and the crew landed on the island, they were frantically looking for water and were so thirsty that they squeezed juice from the fat leaves of the cactus to drink. At last a source of water was found in a rocky gully. Thomas attributed it to the gift of God, because it was good Friday, and they had piously celebrated mass before they set out in search of water. But Thomas will never know that the island they landed on is the only island in the Galapagos archipelago that has plenty of fresh water, today's St. Cristobal Island (SaintCristobal).