I would have walked 500 miles yesterday to achieve the things we experienced on Alexander Selkirk Island, but that was yesterday! After today’s so called ‘moderate’ hike you have got to be joking. I’m exhausted. Long walks of discovery are now off my agenda! Up and up we climbed today, and then up some more.
Each morning the ship’s nicely-presented ‘Chronicle’ two-pager arrives under our cabin door. This provides us with the daily schedule and how to prepare. There were three options today: an uphill 3-hour strenuous walk (think I’ll give that a miss); a history walk around the town (interesting); or ‘a moderate nature and botany walk uphill to Plazoleta el Yunque, a 2.5 mile roundtrip. The latter sounded just my cup of tea.
Before explaining what we did get to know about this island, I would just like to say, our steep walk upwards was never ending. I saw a peak in front of us, not realising that was where we were heading.
I read a notice along the way which said: “Easy access trail where one can appreciate diverse types of vegetation” – not if you’re gasping for breath. It continued: “It also has an internal circuit where native forest is predominant with examples of eucalyptus, ferns, gunnera, cinnamon trees, and (the highly invasive non-native Chilean wineberry) maqui.”
I was almost on my knees when we reached a campsite. I was in no fit state to put up a tent even if I had wanted to. Here we discovered the internal (or infernal) circuitous boardwalk. It seemed the obvious route to take, but we had no idea where it was taking us. There weren’t any signs. Having struggled uphill, we walked round and round ducking under branches and watching our step on the slippery boards as we went. Eventually, we reached the campsite again… and, well what to do next but take the steep walk back down.
However, it was not to end there. There were several other sites for us to see once we got back to our original landing point some hours later. Before I touch on those there is something important to say about Robinson Crusoe Island, as alluded to in the previous posting.
Remember the name Alexander Selkirk, the Scottish buccaneer? He actually arrived in 1703 on what was then known as Isla Más a Tierra, later named Robinson Crusoe Island. He never set foot on Más Afuera (later known as Alexander Selkirk Island).
His ship was the Cinque Ports. The story goes that, upon arrival at Isla Más a Tierra, he quarrelled with his captain Thomas Stradling, complaining the ship had a leaky bottom. He is said to have retorted that he would rather stay on the island than sail with the ship. The captain took him at his word, and left him there.
It is said that Selkirk remained on the island for almost five years until he was rescued by an English sea captain Woodes Rogers, who commented that he looked more rugged in animal skins than the island goats themselves. It is further said that the story inspired Daniel Defoe to write the book Robinson Crusoe, although that is based in the Caribbean and his character was marooned for 28 years.
It seems that Selkirk’s judgement was correct. The Cinque Ports ship later sunk off Colombia.
After that stage in its history, the island is considered to have been inhabited by pirates (and some, it seems, remain today. More about that later). There have also been reports of buried treasure dating back to the 1700s and hunters have scoured the island in search of this ever since.
By the 1800s the Juan Fernández archipelago came under the governance of Chile. In the 1900s the islands became a penal colony housing, particularly, political prisoners. In 1966, in an attempt to capitalise on the tale, the Chileans renamed Isla Más a Tierra as Robinson Crusoe Island thus raising (conveniently) the interests of passing tourists.
This volcanic island itself is considered to be up to four millions years old; is the largest island within the Juan Fernández archipelago; and has the largest population of around 1,200 people and rising, with 120 school children.
An important economic source for the community is fishing, especially for the spiny lobster. It is believed 98% of the fish are endemic, and of the 200-plus plant species found on the island, half are endangered or rare (including the cabbage tree). In addition, there are two highly invasive plants, the mora (wild blackberry) and the maqui (another berry-producing plant). These are taking over where native plants grow, and that in turn has a detrimental effect on the animals, birds and insects that live there.
Official steps are being taken to redress the balance and at the start of our climb we visited a seed bank where a gentleman showed us around. So far seeds from 70% of the plants have been collected – the aim is to achieve 100% – and to discover how best to propagate them.
It is hoped these actions will safeguard, particularly, the critically endangered firecrown hummingbird, which is native to this island only. The bird depends on some of the island’s equally-endangered plant species. We were lucky enough to see one with the help of the birders on board who were hunting amongst the trees.
The island also has a lot of history, especially from World War One. The German ship SS Dresden arrived at the island in 1915 trying to evade British warships. It was cornered by the HMS Glasgow and HMS Kent and the merchant cruiser Orama. The ships opened fire, and the captain subsequently scuttled her. The ship is at the bottom of the ocean, but what can be seen is a shell hole in the cliffs. We walked to that site and saw the hole. Nobody told us if the unexploded shell was still in the cliffs. It certainly didn’t look as if it had been removed, and who would attempt that?
Also to be seen are several caves near the shoreline. These housed political prisoners in the 1800s, and maybe it is possible Alexander Selkirk frequented them during his stay in the 1700s.
But a fitting end for our exhausting day, and what was almost the finale of our cruise of discovery, was a party held for us by the people of the island. We didn’t meet any Alexander Selkirk lookalikes but we did meet quite a few pirates, who were most welcoming and happy to share their booty.
Copyright: Words and photos Sue Barnard 2022