Follow in the footsteps of Charles Darwin

On December 27, 1831, after bad weather and a post-Christmas hangover delayed their departure, the crew of the HMS Beagle finally set sail. Their mission was to conduct detailed hydrographic surveys of the South American coastline and collect specimens of plants, animals, and fossils. Five years later, the Beagle returned to England with an extraordinary collection of natural treasures and survey data, but it also brought back something even more profound: an idea. An idea that would forever change how humanity understands the natural world and our place within it. That idea belonged to Charles Robert Darwin, a once-aspiring medical student who joined the expedition as the ship’s naturalist. In this blog, we trace Charles Darwin’s travels and follow in his footsteps to uncover the origins of life on Earth.

“There are several other sources of enjoyment on a long voyage… The map of the world ceases to be blank; it becomes a picture full of the most varied and animated figures”

Argentina 

Patagonia might not be the first landscape that comes to mind when thinking about the development of Darwin’s evolutionary ideas, places like the Galápagos Islands tend to take center stage. But in fact, Patagonia played a crucial role. During the nearly two years the Beagle spent in Atlantic waters, surveying the eastern coast of South America, Darwin spent most of his time on land, exploring Patagonia’s plains and shorelines. It was here that he uncovered mysteries and began asking questions that would eventually form the foundation of his groundbreaking theories.

Shared by Chile and Argentina, though the majority lies in the latter, Patagonia spans roughly one million square kilometers and encompasses a wide range of biomes. Argentine Patagonia is known for its vast expanses of arid grasslands and desert, while across the Andes, Chilean Patagonia features temperate forests and massive glaciers.

One of the most remarkable discoveries during Charles Darwin’s travels was made in the coastal town of Punta Alta. While excavating the soft red cliffs, Darwin unearthed the embedded skull of a now-extinct giant ground sloth known as a Megatherium. This find sparked deep questions for Darwin, why hadn’t he encountered any living creatures in Argentina that resembled the Megatherium? And what had caused such a massive animal to go extinct? As a naturalist, Darwin was naturally drawn to regions rich in flora and fauna, which may explain why he didn’t connect as strongly with the sparse Patagonian plains as he did with other more biodiverse areas. Still, he noted the striking, almost magical quality of Patagonia’s landscape, an impression that stayed with him for years after his journey.

“They can be described only by negative characters; without habitations, without water, without trees, without mountains, they support merely a few dwarf plants. Why then, and the case is not peculiar to myself, have these arid wastes taken so firm a hold on my memory?”

Chile

After spending two years in Atlantic waters, the HMS Beagle rounded Cape Horn and entered the Pacific Ocean on June 11, 1834. The ship and her crew arrived in Valparaíso, Chile, on July 23. It was from this point that Charles Darwin began his first expedition into the Andes Mountains. The Andes form one of the longest mountain ranges in the world, stretching across Ecuador, Chile, Colombia, Peru, Argentina, Bolivia, and Venezuela. Exploring the Chilean Andes offers unparalleled views of some of the most impressive geological formations on the planet.

Darwin’s journey took him hundreds of kilometers into the high Andes, stopping in towns like San Felipe, Santiago, San Fernando, and Navidad. While sitting among the towering hills near Mount La Campana, Darwin reflected on the beauty of Chile’s mountains and the immense geological forces that must have shaped them. Questions about the timescales behind such monumental events appear throughout Darwin’s journal entries from Chile. While climbing deeper into the Andes, he observed beds of sea fossils located hundreds of meters above sea level, evidence that the western coast of South America was slowly being pushed upward over time.

“My object in coming here was to see the great beds of shells, which stand some yards above the level of the sea, and are burnt for lime. The proofs of the elevation of this whole line of coast are unequivocal: at the height of a few hundred feet old-looking shells are numerous, and I found some at 1300 feet.”

To modern-day explorers retracing Charles Darwin’s travels through the Andes, the idea that mountains are millions of years old may seem obvious. But in Darwin’s time, the prevailing belief was that nature was a direct product of God’s design and that the Earth was no older than 6,000 years.

Today, Darwin’s legacy lives on across Chile’s remarkable landscapes. In the far south of the country, near the windswept islands of Tierra del Fuego, lies the Cordillera Darwin, an extensive mountain range named in his honor. Its highest peak, Mount Darwin, was named by Captain Robert FitzRoy on Darwin’s 25th birthday during their expedition aboard the HMS Beagle. On the return leg of his journey, Darwin began to fall ill. By the time he neared Valparaíso, his condition had worsened, leaving him bedridden for a month. It was during these uncertain days that he learned of troubling news: both the Beagle and Captain FitzRoy were in crisis.

FitzRoy, worn down by the immense responsibility of surveying and recording the South American coastline, suffered a nervous breakdown and resigned his command. Lieutenant John Wickham briefly assumed leadership of the Beagle. FitzRoy’s final order was to complete the remaining coastal surveys and return to England. However, Wickham declined the position, and FitzRoy was eventually persuaded to resume command. This turn of events would shape history. With their work in Chile complete, the Beagle and her crew set sail for a remote chain of volcanic islands off the coast, the Galápagos, where Charles Darwin’s travels would take a revolutionary turn and forever change the course of science.

The Galapagos Islands

On September 15, 1835, the Beagle and her crew caught their first glimpse of land: Mount Pitt, a modest hill on Chatham Island. They had officially arrived in the Galápagos Islands.

“Considering that these islands are placed directly under the equator, the climate is far from being excessively hot; this seems chiefly caused by the singularly low temperature of the surrounding water, brought here by the great southern Polar current. Excepting during one short season, very little rain falls, and even then it is irregular; but the clouds generally hang low. Hence, whilst the lower parts of the islands are very sterile, the upper parts, at a height of a thousand feet and upwards, possess a damp climate and a tolerably luxuriant vegetation”

The Galápagos Islands are part of a volcanic archipelago located near the equator. At first glance, they may not match the lush, tropical image one might expect of equatorial islands. Formed from jagged volcanic rock, the lower elevations often appear barren, with sparse vegetation. However, what the Galápagos lack in scenic greenery, they more than make up for in extraordinary biodiversity. A remarkable percentage of the wildlife here is found nowhere else on Earth, 80% of land birds, 97% of marine reptiles and land mammals, and 30% of plants are endemic to the Galápagos. It was on these remote volcanic shores that Darwin encountered one of the islands’ most iconic inhabitants: the giant tortoise.

These tortoises, which the crew of the Beagle unfortunately used as a food source, reacted indifferently to Darwin’s presence, perhaps understandably so. During a stay at a prison colony on Charles Island, the colony’s overseer, Nicholas Lawson, told Darwin that it was possible to identify a tortoise’s island of origin by the shape of its shell. At the time, Darwin didn’t grasp the full significance of Lawson’s comment. While the giant tortoises later played a role in shaping his thinking, it was ultimately the unique birds of the Galápagos, particularly the finches, that truly captured his imagination and helped spark the development of his revolutionary theories.

“Seeing this gradation and diversity of structure in one small, intimately related group of birds, one might really fancy that from an original paucity of birds in this archipelago, one species had been taken and modified for different ends.”

It was Darwin’s close study of wildlife in the Galápagos Islands that provided the final piece of the puzzle for his theory on the origins of life. His discovery of fossils in Patagonia had already led him to question the long-held belief that each species was purposefully created by God. If some species had gone extinct, why had those particular ones disappeared?

His explorations in Chile further challenged conventional thinking by revealing the immense timescales over which geological processes occur. This raised a new question: what might happen to life over such vast periods of time? In the Galápagos, Darwin began to notice subtle differences in the plants and animals from island to island, variations that would ultimately spark revolutionary ideas about evolution and natural selection.

“I industriously collected all the animals, plants, insects & reptiles from this island. It will be very interesting to find from future comparison to what district or ‘center of creation’ the organised beings of this archipelago must be attached”

In the spring of 1839, Darwin published the journal he kept during his voyage aboard the HMS Beagle. However, it would take nearly twenty more years before he released the work for which he is most famous: On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection: Or, the Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life. Although Darwin had developed the core of his theory not long after returning to his hometown of Shrewsbury, he delayed publication for many years, largely out of fear of religious backlash.

Darwin’s theory would fundamentally reshape how humanity understands its place in the world. Rather than being created separately and placed above nature by divine design, humans are part of a vast web of evolving species, just one branch among millions shaped by mutation, adaptation, and the relentless struggle for survival. In the closing lines of On the Origin of Species, Darwin captures the elegance and wonder of this natural process with timeless grace.

“There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.”

Make it happen

If you’re eager to follow in the footsteps of Charles Darwin, South America‘s wild, rugged, and ancient landscapes offer the perfect setting to experience firsthand the challenges that drive life to adapt, evolve, and thrive. Whether you’re standing in awe of the sweeping vistas in Argentinian Patagonia, marveling at the clear skies above the Chilean Andes, or exploring the incredible biodiversity of the Galapagos Islands, South America will deepen your understanding of the natural world – just as it did during Charles Darwin’s travels. Ready to embark on your own journey of discovery? Get in touch with us today to plan your adventure.