Juan Fernandez Islands
Famed as the temporary home of the real-life Robinson Crusoe, the inaccessibility of these Pacific islands makes them natural biospheres, replete with abundant endemic wildlife.
Main Attractions
Most people have never heard of the 18th-century Scottish sea dog named Alexander Selkirk or the Juan Fernández Islands, 650km (404 miles) off the Chilean mainland. Yet they are part of our popular mythology. Try to imagine being marooned on a desert isle and you will probably see a man dressed in goatskins, flintlock at the ready, scanning the horizon for passing ships. His island – unlike the barren, windswept rocks where most mariners were washed up – has plentiful wood, crystal waters, abundant food, and no wild beasts. The scene is from Robinson Crusoe, of course. But although Daniel Defoe set his classic novel in the Caribbean, he based it directly on Alexander Selkirk’s real-life adventures on Chile’s tiny Pacific possession.
The foul-tempered young Scotsman spent four years and four months on the largest of the three deserted Juan Fernández Islands. Finally rescued by a group of English privateers, Selkirk was clad in goatskins and could barely speak, croaking rather than talking. He had made himself two wooden huts with fur-lined interiors and had become incredibly fit from chasing wild animals around the rocky shores. The marooned sailor became a minor celebrity on his return home and – with the more debauched side of his character being carefully tidied up – inspired one of the most enduring classics in the English language.
Selkirk’s rescue.
Copyright (c) Mary Evans Picture Library 2008
The inhabitants of the Juan Fernández Islands today certainly aren’t shy about this unique claim to fame. Selkirk’s island was renamed Isla Robinson Crusoe in the mid-1970s, while another, which the Scotsman never visited, was renamed Isla Alejandro Selkirk. Hotel and street names in the islands’ only township refer insistently to the shipwrecked hero.
Due to its remoteness, the archipelago is one of the least visited places in Chile and its tourist infrastructure is only gradually recovering from the tsunami that hit it in February 2010, washing away most of San Juan Bautista, the only town. But, as well as several fascinating excursions relating to Selkirk’s adventures there, the real reason for visiting is the archipelago’s attraction as a unique wilderness area, declared a Biosphere Reserve by Unesco in 1977.
The real-life Crusoe
While Daniel Defoe’s fictional hero was shipwrecked in a tropical storm (and so, in his more meditative moments, saw the Hand of God at work), the real-life mariner Alexander Selkirk could only blame himself for his predicament: Selkirk actually asked to be let off his ship in the middle of nowhere. As sailing master of the Cinque Ports, a privateering vessel making a circumnavigation of the globe in 1704, the quarrelsome Selkirk found himself constantly at odds with the ship’s captain. Feelings finally came to a head over some poor repairs that had been made to a leak in the hull: Selkirk snapped that, if the boat were to go down, it would be without him. The captain agreed to land the Scotsman at the nearest island with a few supplies.
FACT
The three Juan Fernández Islands are believed to be the result of three separate volcanic eruptions.
Selkirk stubbornly held to his demand until the very last moment. Sitting on the shore of Más a Tierra (as the island was then known), watching his former shipmates row back to their ship, the enormity of his decision struck him. Marooning was considered by pirates to be the ultimate punishment, far worse than walking the plank. A slow death by starvation or dehydration was the usual result. Most were put ashore with only their sea chest and a pistol with one ball; tales abounded of ships’ crews finding a lone skeleton with a shattered skull and a rusting pistol clenched in one hand.
Selkirk is said to have plunged into the ocean and chased after the departing rowboat, screaming madly that he had changed his mind. “Well I have not changed mine!” spat the captain. “Stay where you are and may you starve!”
FACT
The Juan Fernández native eagle lives only on the small Isla Alejandro Selkirk. It visits the other two islands, but never settles on them; no one knows why.
Goats, rats, and feral cats
This indecorous scene was the beginning of 52 months of isolation for Selkirk. He spent most of his time reading the Bible. A journalist who interviewed the Scotsman in a London tavern after his return to England noted that he believed himself “a better Christian while in this solitude than ever he was before, or than, he was afraid, he should ever be again.”
Yet in the beginning, Selkirk hardly took his fate philosophically. For several weeks after the marooning, he apparently wandered the coast, wailing and staring at the empty horizon. He simply could not believe that his shipmates would leave him there to rot on the shore. It took him 18 months to accept his fate, tear himself away from the shoreline and explore the rest of his island prison. At least Selkirk was not starved for animal company. Every night he heard the “monsters of the deep” whose cries were “too terrible to be made for human ears” – which, it turned out, were sea lions that had come up to shore. Eventually Selkirk overcame his fear, and learned how to climb behind these ponderous beasts and crack their skulls with a single blow of his hatchet.
Domestic animals had been introduced during an ill-fated attempt by the Spaniards to colonize the island following its discovery by the navigator Juan Fernández in 1574. Wild goats became the Scotsman’s staple food: after his ammunition ran out, he chased them on foot with a knife and became an impressive athlete. He even chased goats for sport, marking their ears as a record. However, this diversion had its dangers: on one occasion Selkirk grabbed a goat just as it was leaping off a precipice. He was able to use the beast’s body to cushion his fall, but was knocked unconscious for at least a full day. After this debacle, he decided to raise goats in a compound.
Wild rats were less amusing animal neighbors, invading Selkirk’s hut by night to nibble his feet and tear his clothes. The Scotsman tamed feral kittens and laid them around his bed as a defense. Apparently he also taught some of his cats and kids to dance. “Thus best we picture him,” intones the early 20th-century poet Walter de la Mare, “praying aloud, singing and dancing with his kids and cats in the flames and the smoke of his allspice wood, and the whole world’s moon taunting and enchanting him in her seasons.”
Three-Island National Park
Except for the town of San Juan Bautista and its surrounding area, all the Juan Fernández archipelago is a vast national park that is carefully controlled by CONAF, Chile’s national park service, to protect the endemic flora and fauna that put the islands on Unesco’s Biosphere Reserve list. There are three official trails that visitors can take on their own but they must register at the Park administration office and, in some parts of the islands, only guided hikes are permitted. An alternative way to see the park is by boat, also visiting colonies of the native fur seal that was once close to extinction.
Plant life is unusually varied in the archipelago, with 101 endemic varieties, including a range of enormous ferns, many of which look like they belong in a Dr Seuss book, and biologists regularly turn up new finds. Of the endemic animals, the red Juan Fernández hummingbird is most famous for its needle-fine black beak and silken plumage.
CONAF spends most of its time trying to eradicate threats introduced by man: everything from mulberry bushes to the wild goats and feral cats descended from Selkirk’s days. Rabbits were a problem, but they have been controlled by the simple solution of paying a trapper to catch and sell 150 a day (the islanders thought this a more humane solution than using the fatal viral disease myxomatosis).
Return to civilization
Charming as these bestial balls must have been, Selkirk did not waver in his attempts to escape the island. Every day he climbed up to a lookout to survey the horizon. On two occasions ships actually pulled into the bay and Selkirk thought himself saved – only to discover that they were Spanish barks that would have taken him as a slave to the mines of Peru if they had caught him. (On the second visit, Spanish sailors even fired on the maroon and chased him into the bushes, but were no match for Selkirk’s superhuman speed. The Scotsman hid up a tree until the danger had passed.)
FACT
Fifty native fern species grow on the Juan Fernández Islands. The largest can reach a height of 5 meters (16ft).
Finally, Selkirk spotted the English Duke and Duchess lowering anchor on the island with 50 scurvy-ridden sailors. Brought on board, the goatskin-clad Selkirk cut an extraordinary figure, but disbelievers were soon silenced when William Dampier came forward to recognize the maroon and confirm his story.
Fisherman in Bahía Cumberland.
2005 AFP
Despite romantic reports to the contrary, Selkirk appears to have had few qualms about returning to his old life of privateering and debauchery. Appointed a mate on the voyage, he took part in the pillage of various Spanish ports before returning with the profits to celebrity in London and his hometown of Lower Largo in Fife, Scotland. He was no doubt gratified to learn that the captain and crew of the Cinque Ports, after dumping him at Juan Fernández, had spent the last four years in a festering Lima jail, having been captured by the Spanish when the vessel foundered, just as Selkirk had predicted.
Drinking and whoring soon took its toll on Selkirk, sapping his unnatural fitness. He even became sentimental for his island prison, noting to one journalist that “I am worth eight hundred pounds, but shall never be so happy as when I was not worth a farthing.” The Scotsman may have gone a little batty: he reportedly dug a cave in his parents’ backyard to hide in, ran away to London with a milkmaid, dumped her, then signed on for another privateering expedition. He caught a fever in the tropics and died on board in 1723, at the age of 47. Selkirk never knew that his marooning on Juan Fernández – extended by Defoe to 28 years and with a Man Friday thrown in – would become a legend.
Traveling to the islands
Getting to the Juan Fernández Islands today can seem as complicated as it was for Alexander Selkirk to get off them 300 years ago. Flights are generally confined to the summer months (October through April), when two companies operate the route. The frequency of flights depends, though, on demand, and getting a confirmed departure date requires luck and dedication. Even in summer, flights can be postponed for several days depending on weather conditions.
TIP
The El Palillo beach to the south of San Juan Bautista is the best place for swimming or snorkeling.
The flights depart from Santiago’s Tobalaba airport early in the morning, leaving the capital behind in a bed of smog. Two hours later, the tiny green specks of Juan Fernández appear, looking as tall as they are wide. For years it was considered impossible to build an airstrip on this rugged terrain, but in the 1970s something looking like a giant ski-jump was blasted through a far corner of the largest island. From the airstrip 1 [map], a jeep heads down a 45-degree angled road to the sea, followed by a 90-minute journey in an open fishing boat to town. On a fine day, the water is clear and blue, with schools of fish zigzagging below and the obese Juan Fernández seals sunning themselves by the shore. The boatmen often smoke succulent lumps of fresh cod caught on the outward journey and share them around with bread and water.
San Juan Bautista
The town of San Juan Bautista 2 [map], where almost all of the archipelago’s 600 inhabitants live, is located roughly where Selkirk spent his enforced leisure time. This is a lobster town and not poor, although prices of goods imported from the mainland are high.
Set beneath forest-covered fists of stone with their peaks continually lost in gray mist, it has only a few unpaved streets, a small museum-library, a handful of restaurants and bars, and a soccer field. With motor vehicles few and far between on the island, the only noise is the never-ending howl of the wind.
Along the path running north from the town is a spot where famous gun shells can be seen embedded in the cliff side. They were fired by the British warships Glasgow and Kent at the German cruiser Dresden when it tried to retire here for repairs in 1915, during World War I. The captain blew up the ship rather than surrender.
El Mirador de Selkirk
The classic hike from town follows Selkirk’s path to El Mirador de Selkirk 3 [map] – the lookout used by the marooned sailor every day to scan the horizon on both sides of the island. Start early, at about 8am, to arrive before the mists roll in. The path runs through crops of introduced eucalyptus into higher forests of indigenous trees. It passes the remains of the Fuerte Santa Bárbara, an old Spanish fort built in the 18th century to ward off pirates, and a turning leading to a rock with carvings on it from 1866 – sailor’s graffiti showing a ship and giant fish. The trail becomes a corridor through rainforest before revealing a knife-shaped peak.
The saddle of the mountain is the only place from which to view both sides of the island: the lush green San Juan Bautista side to the east giving way to dry brown swirls and jagged peaks on the northern side of the mountain. A plaque commemorating Selkirk’s ordeal was erected here by the crew of a British warship in the 19th century. It has more recently been joined by a small memorial from one of the mariner’s descendants from Largo in Scotland.
On the return journey, call in at the Cuevas de los Patriotas (Caves of the Patriots), where 300 pro-Spanish soldiers fled in 1814 after Chile’s declaration of independence. Unlike Selkirk, they couldn’t stand the wind and rain in their huge but damp caves, so gave themselves up. Back on the shore, a number of other caves vie for the title of Selkirk’s home – although for most of the time the mariner lived in his own handmade huts.
FACT
The sandalwood boom of the late 19th century totally deprived Isla Robinson Crusoe of its native sandalwood trees.
Modern-day paradise
One of the real pleasures of any visit to Isla Robinson Crusoe is just taking a seat by the wharf and watching the world go by, sipping on a beer and chatting with the islanders. And, although the archipelago doesn’t boast the swaying palms or golden sands of most South Pacific islands, it does have plenty of other elements to make it a contender: beautiful scenery, good weather, plenty of food, no crime, no poverty, no racial tensions, and no pollution.
The people of the Juan Fernández Islands are not a remote group being dragged into the 21st century, with a delicate society about to buckle under the strain. Everyone is descended from Chilean or European immigrants, and has grown up within a Western culture – albeit a detached version. The islanders take what they want from the modern world, such as medicine, music, radios, or television soap operas, and leave the rest. Perhaps that’s why the half-familiar world of Juan Fernández is so beguiling: one admires the islanders’ good sense but, already being a part of the outside world, can never share it.
Restaurants
Lobster fishing is the principal industry in the Juan Fernández Islands, which makes this the perfect place to try some. Most visitors tend to eat at their hotel, but there are a handful of restaurants in San Juan Bautista should you fancy a change. None accept credit cards and, although there is a cash machine in the town, it is advisable to bring sufficient money with you to last the duration of your stay.
San Juan Bautista
El Barón de Rodt
La Pólvora 353
Tel: (032) 275 1109
The specialty of this restaurant, located in the higher part of the town, is a local fish called vidriola (amberjack); it also has a terrace overlooking the bay.
Residencial Mirador Selkirk
El Castillo 251
Tel: (032) 275 1028
This cozy family-run restaurant, which survived the tsunami, is located in an islander’s house with a terrace that overlooks the bay. It serves typical Chilean dishes, including local specialties, such as freshly caught lobster and crab.