Over 500 years ago, sailing to certain parts of the world meant venturing literally into the unknown. There were no photographs, accurate maps, or books to reveal what lay beyond the ocean. There were rumors, stories, legends, and an immense curiosity to discover what the world held.

In that context, one of the greatest adventures in history took place: the expedition started by Ferdinand Magellan and completed by Juan Sebastián Elcano, who between 1519 and 1522 made the first circumnavigation of the world.

This year also marks the 500th anniversary of the death of Juan Sebastián Elcano, the Spanish navigator who took command of the expedition after Magellan's death and successfully guided the Victoria back to Sanlúcar de Barrameda. Next September 6th will also mark another anniversary of that arrival, led by Elcano and the other 17 survivors of an expedition that had begun three years earlier.

To commemorate those dates, Bioparc Fuengirola invites visitors to delve into the spirit of those first explorers through two spaces that allow them to travel back to that time: the Discovery Room and the Chamber of Wonders.

A world yet to be discovered

The Discovery Room places the visitor before the great challenge that those navigators faced: trying to understand and represent a planet that they did not yet know completely.

Two large globes, one of them inspired by a recreation by Leonardo da Vinci, large murals and references to the navigation routes of the first circumnavigation of the world make this space a tribute to the explorers who set out to cross oceans without knowing for sure what they would find on the other side.

The expedition departed from Seville in 1519 with five ships and more than 200 men. After Magellan's death in the Philippines, Elcano took command and led the Victoria back to Spain. That voyage allowed Europeans to discover territories, peoples, plants, and animals previously unknown to them and forever changed their perception of the planet.

When a narwhal turned into a unicorn

The Chamber of Wonders recreates the old cabinets of curiosities, spaces where objects from distant lands and natural elements were gathered, arousing fascination, surprise, and sometimes even bewilderment. Fossils, bones, herbals, books, objects related to medicine, animal remains, and the so-called "unicorn horns" are all part of this unique universe where science and legend coexisted.

One of the most striking elements is precisely the narwhal tusk, known for centuries as the "unicorn of the sea." A perfect example of how an element of nature could become a legendary creature when the scientific knowledge necessary to explain its origin did not yet exist.

The treasure that motivated the explorers

And among all the wonders, some held a very special value. Spices were one of the driving forces behind the maritime explorations of the 15th and 16th centuries. Cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg, pepper, and ginger were extraordinarily valued products in Europe and reached prices comparable to precious metals.

In the Chamber of Wonders, visitors can get close to some of these spices and discover them also through their sense of smell, reproducing the sensory dimension they must have had for those who encountered them for the first time.

Cloves, for example, reached extraordinary prices, and their origin was kept secret. Spices not only transformed European food: they played a fundamental role in medicine, trade, politics, and the economy of the time.

The animals that could have surprised Elcano

The fascination with the unknown also took the form of an animal.

The chronicles of the expedition, especially those of Antonio Pigafetta, described species that surprised Europe: large bats, brightly colored parrots, flying fish, guanacos, or the extraordinary birds of paradise, which fueled all kinds of stories about their appearance and origin.

Many of the regions visited by that expedition are now home to species that can be seen at Bioparc Fuengirola.

In the Asian rainforests, we find, for example, Bornean orangutans, Malayan tapirs, Edwards' pheasants, and Sumatran tigers; while South American ecosystems are represented by species such as the giant otter and the arapaima, among others. These animals allow us to imagine the wonder that those lands and their natural inhabitants must have inspired in the eyes of the first explorers.

But there is a fundamental difference between those early journeys and the ones we can make today.

They explored to discover. We have enough knowledge to know that many of those wonders are threatened today and that we must preserve them.

From discovery to conservation

The first circumnavigation of the world changed our understanding of the planet. Five centuries later, Bioparc aims to recapture that spirit of curiosity from a contemporary perspective, joining in the commemoration of Juan Sebastián Elcano and the first circumnavigation by highlighting not only the historical significance of that feat, but also its enormous scientific and natural implications.

A tribute to those men who dared to sail into the unknown and to all the people who, five centuries later, continue to explore, investigate and work to understand and protect the extraordinary diversity of our planet.