El Progreso

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Located up the hill up the main road from Puerto Baquerizo Moreno is El Progreso, a small village, with the original settlement on the island.

About 500 people live in El Progresso which has a rather sordid past. In the mid-1800s a penal colony was established there for prisoners from Ecuador. This was later taken over by Manuel Cobos who treated the convicts as slave laborers and developed a sugar cane and coffee plantation. Unsurprisingly, the convicts murdered Cobos during an insurrection. El Progreso, is the oldest surviving settlement in the Galapagos Islands, established in 1869. Today the town is a sleepy farming community.

El Progreso is easily accessibly by bike (as long as your gears work, as it is uphill!), or a sturdy walk or an inexpensive cab/truck ride.

Nearby El Progreso is La Soledad - a very small settlement not too far beyond El Progreso...not much there except a nice mirador (view point) up above a little church, looking out onto the sea on the southwestern side of the island.

The road that passes by El Progreso takes you to El Junco lagoon.