Wittmer Hotel
Beez Neez now Chy Whella
Big Bear and Pepe Millard
Tue 16 Apr 2013 22:07
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Wittmer Hotel, Playa
Negra
On our shore stroll on Black Beach we went in
search of..............
The Wittmer
Hotel.
In the main
room we found loads of family photos, memorabilia and island
history.
Information and
photos made for a real and wonderful story.
“We knew nothing, but all the
same, we made it.
We have learned it all, because
we had no other way out.
Need is a wonderful
teacher”.
Margret Wittmer.
Margret Walbroel was born in 1904 in
Cologne, Germany and was the youngest of two sisters with a good singing voice.
Later she worked as an employee in a company where she met Heinrich Wittmer,
they married and their first son Harry was born in 1918. Heinrich was born in
1890, was an ex naval officer and personal counselor of the Mayor of Cologne,
Konrad Adenauer.
Moved by Dr.Ritters press notes and
other articles on South America, the Wittmers chose Floreana to reinvent their
life and hopefully improve Harry health as he suffered rheumatic fever.
Having invested all their resources
the family traveled to Amsterdam, from there they set sail for Ecuador.
The Wittmer’s
arrived on Floreana in August 1932 and took to the
caves that had been used by pirates in years gone by. We visited them on
our island tour.
The caves were
near the only source of fresh water on the
island.
The family
found fruit trees and wild cattle, left behind after the previous attempts at
trying to establish a colony. They slowly constructed their first house out of
wood, hay, soil bricks and stone. They built a henhouse and their vegetable
patch included coffee and tobacco. Margret had arrived on Floreana pregnant and
after a long and difficult labour, Rolf was born on the 2nd of January 1833, the
islands first born.
In 1837, Ingeborg Florentina Wittmer
was born. Later that year the Territorial Chief of the Galapagos asked the
family to abandon the island and relocate on Isabela or return to the continent.
Fortunately, the procedures at the German Embassy in Quito prevented that order
being carried out. The arrival of the Conway and Zavala families sealed the
island as inhabited at last. An atmosphere of peace ensued.
Family
memorabilia
Two
hundred happy residents on the island, black sand,
basic living, electricity some of the day, free internet, would we call this
paradise ??? Mmm that’s quite a question. We have enjoyed our visit here, a bit too primitive and isolated for me, so on
balance - pleased to be moving on.
The man who welcomes you ashore and
says farewell is none other than Rolf. So very
fitting.
ALL IN ALL QUIET A
STORY |