Galapagos Islands discovery by Fray Tomas de Berlanga

Fray Tomas de Berlanga, the Bishop of Panama documented the officially first visit to the islands in 1535. Delegated to investigate the accounts of the barbaric actions of the conquistadors in what is now Peru, his ship, caught in a dead calm, drifted westward in the ocean currents.

He wrote that the land there, inhabited only by birds, seals and reptiles, was "dross, worthless, because it has not the power of raising a little grass, but only some thistles."

With water sources depleted, the Bishop and crew searched the new islands for fresh water, almost entirely in vain. Frustrated, and suffering, the men resorted to crewing the native cactus for water. Disenchanted, they left the islands, but not without sending word to King Carlos V of Spain, telling of the strange and foolishly tame wildlife and the numerous galapagos (giant tortoises), and the name stuck.

This was the time of Spanish exploration and discovery, and followed Magellan's circumnavigation of the globe by a just a dozen years and Balboa's discovery of the Pacific by two dozen.

Refugees of Pizarro
Also motivated by the conquistadors on the continent, another group of lost sailors dubbed the islands with another name. In 1546, a group of insubordinate soldiers of Pizzaro attempted what might have been South America's first coup de ta. Vanquished and exiled from the continent, the upstarts had little to no nautical training and were taken, much like other animals that were also transported there, by the currents until they came in sight of the Galapagos. With their limited maritime skills, the ruffians attempted to arrive at the islands by sight. Peering through fog and carried by currents, they felt as though the islands themselves were moving, that they were enchanted and named them "Las Islas Encantadas."

1561 - First Map of the Islands
The islands soon appeared on maps. The first was a map from 1561, soon they appeared on the Dutch maps like Mercator (1569) and Ortelius (1570). The name the "Enchanted Islands" appeared on a map by Ortelius of 1589. Guerrit’s map of 1622 shows three islands identified as Isabela, Santa Cruz, and San Cristobal.

The islands appeared on the map late in the 16th century as the "Insulae de los Galopegos."