I took a vacation to the Galapagos in hopes that mingling with peaceful animals would provide some relief from writing about Vladimir Putin's bloody crimes.
To an extent, it worked. These remote volcanic islands, 600 miles off Ecuador's Pacific coast, which famously provided the basis for Charles Darwin's theories of evolution, are now so carefully protected that their creatures show little fear toward the limited numbers of visiting humans. Garish red-gold land iguanas may freeze in place as hikers pass, but blue-footed boobies freely perform their mating dance and sea lions roll around on land, oblivious to intruders.
Yet it was the giant tortoises that fascinated and soothed me the most.
