Yay for Boobies (and whales, too!)
Friday, August 8th, 2008Gina. Bahia, Ecuador.
After our last trip to Puerto Lopez was such a disaster (see post), I had both high hopes and a little trepidation towards this second excursion. We were going back to Puerto Lopez expressly for the purpose of me going to Isla de la Plata and seeing the blue footed boobies. Steve was going to stay back at the hostel and relax for the day since he got very seasick the last time we were in the town (even after taking Dramamine).
Friday started out well, with the Planet Drummers staying in the apartment to do some paperwork (Clay) and clean and prepare the tree seeds we’d collected on Thursday’s hike (Steve, Jamie and me). We were having a short day since Thursday was so very long, and that was fine by me since it was going to be three buses and a total of five hours before getting to Puerto Lopez. We grabbed a yummy fish lunch and caught our first bus to Puerto Viejo which was the fanciest bus I’ve been on so far in Ecuador. They were even playing the new Die Hard movie which unfortunately was dubbed in Spanish, but I basically could figure out what was going on for the parts that I saw. Like most buses this one stopped a lot to let people on and off and the aisles were soon packed with Ecuadorians. I’m really surprised by how the girls dress here. They always look like they’re going out to the clubs with chubby bellies rolling over ridiculously tight pants and very low cut shirts that are too short and brightly colored, often with sequence. I wanted to buy some new shirts here as my two are getting a little worn and it would just be nice to have something new to wear, but I can not find just a normal shirt in this town. It’s amazing. This might just be the beach culture, but I guess we’ll see once we get to Quito and around. Another thing we’ve noticed in general about South America (which I can’t remember if I’ve mentioned before or not) is that people are generally overweight. Kids are generally pretty skinny until about sixteen or so, and then everything has big bellies. I guess it’s all the crappy food they eat. I’m always seeing kids and adults with ice cream, cookies, candy, or something deep fried.
After three buses and lots of napping on my part we arrived in Puerto Lopez which was chilly and raining a bit—a bad sign since I hadn’t brought a rain coat or any warm clothes. We checked into Hostel Maxima partly because Hostel Sol was all booked up (but Hostel Maxima was much nicer with a private bathroom in our room that wasn’t home to billions of mosquitoes like the shared, outdoor bathrooms at Hostel Sol). We’d stayed at Maxima the first night in Puerto Lopez on the previous trip but were kept up all morning by roosters so Steve had us move. This time we thankfully got a room away from the roosters, so it wasn’t so bad (we also kept the windows shut since it was cooler and we had a fan in the room). After checking in and throwing down our stuff we bee-lined to Machalilla Tours which we picked for the tour for the simple reason that they give a 10% discount to SAE members. All of the Isla de la Plata tours from Puerto Lopez are $40 plus the $15 park fee, so the discount made our decision a lot easier. It ended up being a good choice since they even had an English speaking woman (from Switzerland) working the office, so I could ask questions and get a good explanation of what to expect. All of the other tour agencies we’d talked to on the previous trip except for one didn’t speak English. I booked the tour for the next day and other than a minor hiccup when they couldn’t decide whether or not they actually gave a discount (they do) everything went smoothly. We had a yummy dinner of spaghetti—mine with shrimp and Steve’s with a mushroom sauce—and then turned in fairly early since we were both still a little tired from the hike the previous day and we were going to get up early for the trip.
montarsig