Floreana Island, Galapagos, Ecuador

Floreana was the first island to be colonized by Ecuadorians in 1832. It was a penal colony that didn’t last long because of the lack of fresh water. A fish canning plant was established there by Norwegian immigrants in 1924; it lasted only a couple of years. A few years later, Friedrich Ritter, a German doctor, arrived with his female companion Dore Strauch, who suffered from multiple sclerosis. A doctor of holistic medicine, Ritter removed all of his teeth and took with him stainless-steel dentures to avoid any dental complications. Together, they set up a very successful garden and lived off the land.

A pregnant Margret Wittmer arrived in 1932, with her husband Heinz and her step-son Harry. They built a house and also established an agricultural lifestyle before giving birth to their son Rolf, the first person to be born in Galapagos. He established the Tip Top fleet of yachts to bring tours to the islands, and we were on one of those boats. Floreana is most well-known for being the site of several mysterious disappearances in the 1930s—the one receiving the most attention being that of a supposed Austrian baroness, who had arrived shortly after the Wittmers with her three servants, and was quite imperious in her treatment of any and all. So more a question of who murdered her rather than why it happened. A finger was pointed at the Wittmers, but she denies any part in it in her book, published in 1962, and there was no one alive to refure her story. Coincidence? Probably. Several copies of her book Floreana were on the boat we were on, and for others, it is available on Hoopla.