Food is a vehicle for memory; it is our first encounter with metaphor. A favorite food, a special dish, can bring back a rush of details about people long gone. Meditations on a madeleine cookie can recreate an entire lost world. My great aunt-Lil died at age 98, and, though we could see it coming, it never occurred to us to write down her schnecken recipe. In the many years since, it has become a double blow–Aunt Lil is dead and we have lost the keys home.
In Galapagos, animals are rockstars. The fauna are friendlier than your neighbors. Sea lions stare directly into your mask while you snorkel with sea turtles, penguins, and giant manta rays. Later, while sunning on the beach, you may find that same sea lion has cuddled up beside you for a snooze. The birds, brilliantly and bizarrely festooned, are so close and so fearless they will sing right into your ear. There are rainbow-colored giant iguanas. And when you sail into the sunset, whales and dolphins frolic in your bow-waves. …To travel in Galapagos is to watch Darwin’s ideas take shape, as if one had sat down to watch Shakespeare write.