Aymara

Aymara's gallery on Avenida Charles Darwin in Puerto Ayora grew out of the work of Beat Luginbühl, a Swiss jeweler from Thun who trained in metalworking before relocating to the Galapagos and finding, in his own account, the ideal setting to show what he made. His pieces are built by hand-cutting, bending, welding and polishing metal, and the sterling-silver and gold jewelry that carries his name now includes a signature run of Galapagos sea-turtle designs alongside broader wildlife and island motifs.

The gallery has grown past jewelry alone into a wider collection of South American craft and fine art: handwoven tapestries, Wounaan-Embera weavings and masks, mirrors and retablos, collector sculptures, and botanical ivory pieces, organized across roughly half a dozen curated categories. The mix positions Aymara less as a single-maker jewelry counter and more as a small gallery built around one jeweler's founding name, pairing his own metalwork with pieces sourced from artisans elsewhere in the region. For a shop on Puerto Ayora's main tourist street, the range gives visitors both a wearable souvenir tied to the islands' wildlife and a point of entry into indigenous weaving traditions from well beyond Galapagos itself.