Wall of Tears, Galapagos

Prisoners built this long wall from the dark grey and black volcanic stone of San Isabela. 

It’s completely pointless; it doesn’t enclose anything or protect a parcel of land; it simply stretches in 2 dimensions for a while and then stops.  Its construction was a punishment, and exercise in back-breaking futility meant to demoralize the inhabitants of the San Isabela penal colony, set up to house opponents of the dictatorship that ruled Ecuador after the Second World War.

In the early 1950s, the cruelty of the San Isabela penal colony attracted widespread outrage, and the facility was closed.  Many of the newly released prisoners decided to settle on the island instead of returning home, and many of the people here today can trace their ancestry back to a grandfather or great-grandmother who came here as a prisoner.

The wall still stands, a reminder of the chequered history of this largest island in the archipelago, and the hardships that many islanders’ forebears endured.