Puerto Lopez

A couple of weekends ago I traveled to Puerto Lopez on the coast of Ecuador close to the province of Manabi where my host mom is from.Since she is from the coast you would say she is "costeña".

Anyway to continue with this post, I left on a Wednesday night on an overnight bus with 2 other girls that are here from University of Idaho.(The bus that I rode was called "Reino del Camino" this translates to "Kingdom of the Way".)The bus ride was about 9-10 hours, which is a bit long on a bus and I only used the bathroom on the bus if I had to.This is an adventure because the roads are bumpy . . . you get the point.I´ll let you imagine how it would be to use a bathroom on a Greyhound Bus for example, that is if a bus like that had a bathroom.

We arrived about 6 o´clock in the morning to Puerto Lopez and as we stepped off the bus we quickly found out that the sidewalks and streets were covered in mud.So I quickly rolled up my jeans so as not to get them as well as my shoes muddy.My friend Lisa (1 of the 2 girls I went with) has a book called "The Lonely Planet" so it´s pretty much a travel guide to wherever you want to go inside of Ecuador with hotel, transportation and tourist attraction information.So we knew right away that there was a hostal really close and we did not need to take a mototaxi (a seating area for 3 people with a canopy over it in the front part of a motorcycle) despite the insistence of the taxi drivers to keep our shoes from getting too muddy.We walked about 4-5 blocks to the hostal.Oh if you don´t know what a hostal is it´s pretty much a cheaper version of a hotel, these are usually used by people ages 15-35.This particular hostal was called "Hostal Sol" (Sun Hostal).

Since it is really hard to get a good night´s sleep on a bus all night we crashed for a couple hours and woke up about 8:30am to eat breakfast at a place that was suppose to be pretty new in town with the attraction of banana pancakes.Just a fact real quick: fruit of all kinds is popular here in Ecuador but bananas are really popular on the coast.So then we finally found this place called "Whale Cafe", and the pancakes were as good as they talked them up to be.My 2 friends Lisa and Erin ate banana pancakes and I ate 2 apple pancakes.Mmmm . . . a little taste of home back in the United States.

We spent the rest of the day walking around the town, walking in the sand and playing in the dirty ocean water.Note:don´t go to a fishing town and expect to see a beautiful beach.This is because the fishermen throw what they don´t want on the beach.So you can imagine what we found . . . dead shrimp, a huge puffer fish, a couple eels, a pelican and various other fish.Gross huh?But there was something really cool on the beach also; don´t despair!I guess about 10-15 years ago a dead humpback whale (of the giant species) had washed up on shore after dying of cancer.So they have the skeleton up to show off.The bones have been preserved, and they have all the history of the whale in a ton of different languages.Oh also close by is an area with signs pointing in all directions of the world with the country names on the signs.(This is because Ecuador is on the equator line of the world.)

The second day there (Thursday) we went out to an island called "Isla de la Plata" (Silver Island).

Just a quick story here: I and my 2 friends were waiting on the shore of Puerto Lopez for the other people who were going on the boat with us to the island.Before I say anything else I will say that we were never in any real danger.Okay so while we were waiting, this 8 year old boy (from Puerto Lopez) comes walking up to my friends and I.I noticed right away that he was holding both of his hands behind his back, and in my experience with kids that only means he had something that he didn´t want us to see.I kinda stepped a foot to one side so I could get a good glimpse and sure enough he had a knife behind his back.Now mind you I wasn´t sure what was going on in his head with 3 "gringas" that are 3 times his size.Maybe he thought he was going to rob us, I don´t know.But for some reason, either they didn´t take the time to notice why he wasn´t really conversing with us or that he had something behind his back; but Erin and Lisa didn´t realize that this 8 year old had a knife.I didn´t say anything because first of all I didn´t want to scare my friends an secondly the boy wasn´t too close.So nothing ever came about with this boy.I was going to say something when he came close to the other tourists when they arrived, but he never came too horribly close.And by the time we had all climbed aboard, he took off running in the other direction.Needless to say, that was something weird.When we were safely on the boat I told my 2 friends about the knife that this boy had behind his back the whole time, and they were glad he didn´t do anything too drastic.

Back to the story . . . this island is nicknamed "mini Galapagos", because you can find all the same types of birds and sometimes sea lions on this island.Oh, to back-track a bit the island´s main attraction is humpback whales.This is due to the fact that they migrate towards the coast of Chile and lower during the months of June-September.It is really rare to see them in early October, but guess what?!We saw a group of 3 humpback whales with a group of dolphins along with them.It was so awesome!!!The whales didn´t really jump out of the water much so we just saw their fins, tails and their backs where they spurt water to breath (airholes).The dolphins were just like any movie because they came so close to our boat and they were also jumping alongside it.

Ok, back to the island.I was so excited when we arrived on the island to see a ton of frigate birds, (the ones with the red bags under their chin) albatrosses and best of all (for my excitement) blue-footed boobies.Man those creatures are so interesting looking!It was really humid as we were hiking, but well worth it.Most of the blue-footed boobies were either on top of a nest of 3 eggs or in pairs.(They just dig a hole in the ground for a nest.)It was interesting to see that they were on the path where the group was walking, not more than 2-3 inches away at times.But they are used to humans because there is a law protecting them.It was so cool to watch the dance that the guy bird does to show his affection for the girl.Fact:to tell them apart the guy is always shorter, the girl has darker pupils (part of the eyes) and the sounds they make are different.(The sounds the girls make are much louder.)

After we were back in the boat to head for an area to go snorkeling, we were eating watermelon on our break and this marine turtle comes swimming up to our boat.Mind you we weren´t that far from shore.Anyway it was so sweet to see more of God´s creation, what a sense of humor He had when He created some of these creatures! hahaha Anyway this sea turtle was big, and he definitely stayed for a bit to have a snack of watermelon with us.The turtle ate some of our rinds out of our hands.Some experience!Then it just swam off, just like that!I guess it just came for a snack and that was it!Oh another thing, I had my bread left from the sandwich they gave me.I was going to throw it in the garbage but one of the guides asked me for it and said "mire" (watch this).I went to the side of the boat and he began tossing piece after piece of my bread into the water.I watched and lo and behold, a school of topical fish began swarming around the bread to eat it.(Just like the ducks in Columbia Park.)It was very cool!

We finally pulled out to this cove area to go snorkeling, and it took me about 2 minutes to get up the gumption to jump into the cold water (almost like Touchet River cold).When I finally jumped in and put my mask and snorkel on I had totally forgotten how awesome it was to snorkel!It´s so sweet to be on the surface of the water watching what kind of creatures are swimming below you and around your legs.What an experience!I can´t even put words to it!I saw many different schools of fish, another sea turtle far below the surface of the water, a couple small sting rays and another type of long fish (kind of see-through with a long, blue stripe in the middle of it´s body).About 2 minutes before I headed back to the boat, I was just floating on top of the water and a school of tropical fish swam super close to me.But the moment I moved my hand or my foot, they got scared and swam away.Anyway, what a time I had!

The last morning we were there my friends and I went back for more delicious pancakes, yum!I went horse back riding later, just the guide and I.I spent about 3 hours galloping on the beach, trotting in the forest and back again.Riding a horse on a beach, I can now check that off my list of things to do in this lifetime on Earth.That night we headed back on another overnight bus (so as to knock off the price of another night in the hostal).We arrived back in Quito about 6-7am, and although it was Sunday I slept in my comfortable bed in my room until about 11:30am and completely missed the church service.Well, I think that is all friends.I hope you were able to make it through this whole blog without getting too bored.

+-until then-+