Caitlin and Megan do Ecuador: Part II

Caitlin and Megan do Ecuador: Part II

Long time coming, right? Sorry folks, I didn’t mean to leave you at the edge of your seats after Part I.

So, yes, we wanted to head to the beach. The same day we journeyed all the way out to the airport (literally takes you a couple hours to get there) to get my bag, we left for the beach on an overnight bus. The buses and their companies weren’t as friendly and nice as the ones I had been on in Peru and Chile. This particular bus company took its security VERY seriously, and patted down every person to get on the bus as well as search bags. Its ok, I had nothing to hide. But the lady told me my bag was too big, and after both Caitlin and I tried to argue with her (me in English, which didn’t help much) we proceeded onto the bus with only slightly ruffled feathers. After a few stops, the bus continued to fill up until it was full. And smelly. And a little bit hot. And did we sleep? Oh hell no. Imagine a red eye plane ride. Now make it hot, and smelly, accompanied by a loud radio playing in the driver’s cockpit that he NEVER turned off. Oh, and you know how I am kind of tall? Yeah, I didn’t fit in the seats. At all. My legs had to be out in the isle the entire time. But the arm rest didn’t go up, so it made lounging out quite difficult.  I think we might have slept an hour total – combined.

Anyways, we pulled into Puerto Lopez at like 3:30 am. Unfortunately in this town with only one stop light, there was no visible Starbucks and my hopes and dreams of a caffeinated beverage were dashed. It was so humid that all of my clothes immediately clung to me. There were bugs everywhere and drunk people still wandering around the dirt roads from the night before. The roads resembled driveways more or less and weren’t marked with street names which made finding our hostel a challenge. Finally, Caitlin and I ponied up a quarter each to have a bike taxi take us to the hostel. Once there, we just sat under the kitchen and waited for them to open. Watching the sunrise on the water was pretty, and luckily we had wi-fi so we could play on our phones.

 

 

 

View from the breakfast terrace.

My breakfast companion.

 

After getting checked in and enjoying some breakfast with the local felines, we were quick to make plans. Stay in side? Uh, no. We examined all beach options and quickly settled on the one in the Machalilla national park, Playa de los Frailes.

Yeah, woah.

 

It was easy to hitch a ride on a bus, pay a couple cents and hop off. Then you had to walk about 3 km down to the beach (or rent a bike taxi). We heard it was this gorgeous and quiet untouched beach and we were both so excited! And we were also excited to move our legs after the bus ride the night before!

We walked a jolly mile or so down to the beach through the rain forest. People kept driving by, curious what these bikini clad Gringas were up to and why on earth they were walking. When we finally set foot on the beach… holy ish.

Caitlin walking down the beach.

The first time we thanked the sun.

 

Girls just wanna have fun.

Catchin' up on some readin'.

 

I am such a good girlfriend!

Total joy. Caitlin and I were both so tired but so in heaven when we saw that this is where we got to spend our day. The water was so incredibly warm and the sand was so inviting. We made some little crab friends and laid down our towels to beach it up. While we spent most of the morning/afternoon there, we really didn’t do much except frolic in the water and sand and take pictures. And read our books. And eat some delicious food we picked up at the street market. The we met a family who was nice enough to give us a ride in the back of a their pickup into town. Free ride!

Once back, we settled into our cabana. I saw that there were bug nets and thought it must be a joke. No way! The bugs were ridiculous. Terrible. Everyone I saw walking around had so many scabs on them it looked like they had perma-pox. That night we celebrated our Irish heritage for St Patricks Day with a few beers by the ocean before heading to dinner to the first place we found with wi-fi and a fan to keep the bugs away.

 

The following day we headed out to the Galapagos. Oh, no, not the one you are thinking of. This was the poor man’s Galapagos. Where the real one costs thousands of dollars and planning I am not yet quite capable of, this trip cost me $30.  The trip to Isla de la Plata starts off with a guide picking you up at your hostel, marches you through the disgusting fish market on the beach, and then leads you to wade through some pretty gross water to get to the relatively untrustworthy boat that will motor you through the Pacific to the island. The boat broke down, which didn’t faze me because I don’t speak Spanish and didn’t really know what was going on and also because I was convinced I was not the slowest swimmer on the boat. Eventually, we made it to the island. It was gorgeous. Totally untouched except for the guide hut on the beach and the trails around the island. I didn’t think it was possible, but the island was even muggier than on the mainland. Im not kidding, my camera took foggy pictures because of the condensation. My camera was sweating, so imagine how us humans felt. Anyways, we headed out on a walk around the island which was quite beautiful and eventually found all the Blue Footed Boobies. Yep, they are called Boobies, and their feet really are blue. Don’t worry; I got a case of the giggles when our guide kept saying ‘Boobie poopy.’ Anyways, the view was amazing and I learned quite a bit about the different bird species and how they interact with each other.  We even found a baby Boobie on our way back to the boat, so fluffy and cute!

 

Our group.

A baby Boobie!

My amiga.

We made it back down and were ushered onto the boat, where someone threw a piece of watermelon out into the ocean. Suddenly these two HUGE sea turtles come up and start fighting over the food. All of us tourists got so excited and started squealing and fidgeting with our cameras, so the boat crew just kept feeding the turtles to keep them around. One thing is for sure, I do NOT want to swim with hungry turtles. They were so vicious, kind of like me when I haven’t eaten for a couple hours!

 

We headed to a cove to go snorkeling, but I was super disappointed that the water wasn’t even clear. No difference, I jumped right in. I saw a couple brightly colored fish and swam after them for a bit, but without knowing what I was looking at I quickly lost interest. So, I just swam around in the warm ocean  and was just so happy to be there! After we all packed back up, the boat started heading away from the island. Caitlin and I were both looking back at the island lovingly when a stingray popped out of the ocean and started flailing around in the air. Not kidding, it was like a National Geographic moment. I couldn’t help but think something was chasing it. Caitlin and I both made weird noises, but by the time everyone else looked the Stingray had lost interest (or lost its battle) and wasn’t jumping anymore. Not too much later, we encountered a pod of dolphins that seriously must have been over 100 strong. There were SO MANY all jumping and playing and feeding. After playing with the boat for a while, we headed back to shore.

Dolphins are really hard to catch on camera.

This was our last night in Puerto Lopez. We were so incredibly sad to leave the sun and warmth, but wanted to head back to Quito to try to get on a climb that we had been emailed about. We headed to a restaurant to get some dinner – dee-lish-us, brushed our teeth in the not so clean restaurant bathroom and catch the night bus back to Quito. I still remember Caitlin running down the dirt street in her flip flops with her backpack on after our bus (that only was driving to the bus station a block away).

Bye bye Puerto Lopez.

This was some amazing eats.

Pros: this bus had a little bit more room. I could fit in the seat. Cons: We were right next to the bathroom that didn’t lock and didn’t have running water, so it required an attendant at all times.

And suddenly, we found ourselves in the mountains again in Quito.