Book One: The Thing Was, Chapter 3 Summary

The brand new Hotel El Dorado awaits tourists in Equador's seaport of Guayaquil, but there are hardly any tourists in the once busy port. There are only two ships. James Wait doesn't know how busy the port usually is. Guayaquil is just another city to him, picked at random after he fleeced his last wife.

Wait has a ticket for the "the Nature Cruise of the Century", beginning noon the next day on the Bahía de Darwin, so he's not staying at the Hotel El Dorado long. Wait hasn't even looked at the brochure for the cruise. He doesn't realize that the Galapagos Islands aren't pleasant tropical beaches like Hawaii, but instead harsh lava rocks.

Darwin Bay, for which the Bahía de Darwin is named, is itself named for Charles Darwin...