Poor man's Galapagos

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Bickering Boobies

We're on holidays! Free from school for 15 days, we decided to search for some sol y mar on the edge of Ecuador. Another all-day bus nightmare (had pleasantly forgotten about those the last few months) including a frantic search of the Guayauqil bus terminal (they bark at you like cattle from their little desks), and we found ourselves in lovely little Montañita, source of many a hippie bracelet stall and cheap cocktail. Reminded me of Thailand with its numerous budget lodgings, colourfully adorned bars playing reggae, and assortment of ragged travellers such as ourselves, looking for the beach bliss of a party town.

Really all we did in Montañita was eat a lot, drink a bit, and hire one of those 4-wheel motorcycle things that I always look at with disdain when they zip noisily past to disturb your beach slumber! This time we were the culprits, and delighted in soaring over modest sand dunes and whipping around on a more deserted stretch of sand, getting throroughly covered in mud in the rising tide. The weather in Montañita seemed to be a constant muggy grey, typical of the winter, and sadly not very holiday like.

Puerto López, 2 hrs north, was the next stop for our trip to what we called the 'poor-man's Galapagos' - Isla de la Plata. Back in Cuenca people had told us of the similar wildlife that you can see on this little grey island, and we weren't disappointed, despite the bleak surroundings of thick dry brush and heavy grey sky. The comical blue-footed boobies were not surprised at a group of strange creatures wandering past, and we saw many females sitting peacefully on their nests, with the dad lingering close-by and looking ridiculously useless. Coming down to a beautiful cliff that overlooked voracious waves, we witnessed not-so-amiable masked boobies(see video) and caught a glimpse of a huge feathered baby albatross, easily bigger than its parents because of the fluffy down exploding on its body. Back on the silty beach we chased tiny red crabs who did little crab dances for us, and while eating lunch a huge turtle came up to say hello. All in all a fulfilling poor-man's Galapagos experience. The sun even came out for us while we snorkelled around the point in the afternoon, and we flitted through schools of semi-huge tropical fish, and we were glad to be on holiday!

Time to hightail it out of this crazy country to recharge some pesky little visas. So, why not go to Peru?

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Photos

Blue-footed boobie
Where'd ya buy those gumboots, I wanna pair!

Poor man's Galapagos
Just a little more grey and bleak than the original version, but just as fun!

Masked Boobies
holding their groud and bickering amongst themselves.

Isla de la Plata
In this bay sharks come to mate in the summer, not a nice place for a dip!

Little crabby
There were hundreds of these little buggers snapping away on the beach

Mr Turtle
Take that, Galapagos! I wish we had dove in with him