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Published: August 19th 2011
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So we eventually left Mancora. It was hard but we did it (despite Eoghan trying to convince me to ditch our bus ticket and stay longer). I would have happily stayed there longer (a year maybe!) but time was running out before our flight out of Quito to start making our way home. And Eoghan was dying to see some turtles.
So we booked a night bus for the Sunday night to Guayaquil, which we had heard bad things about so we intended to leave straight away to Puerto Lopez.That was simple enough once we navigated our way around the massive bus station in Guayaquil. We got a bus to Jipijapi and we were told we could get one to Puerto Lopez from there. It was all pretty simple. People kept getting on the buses to sell us herbal remedies, which was odd but other than that we got to Puerto Lopez fine by midday.
After taking advice on where to stay from a german couple we checked into our hotel after they promised to keep the room private, just for us despite there being 3 beds! There was an impressive selection of animals there, along with the massive American
Staffy and a few other dogs, there were cats, a rabbit, a lemur (i think) and lots of roosters.
We then headed straight for a travel agent as we wanted to book the Isla de la Plata for the next day as this was our main reason for coming to Ecuador!
We left the next morning for our day at Isla de la Plata. We drove on the speedboat out for a while and stopped to watch the humpback whales breaching. This was fantastic! We saw the whales come right out of the water, they were awesome. We didn't have a very good camera and had to use my mobile so my pictures do not do it justice at all. I stopped trying to get a good shot eventually and decided just to enjoy it.
Then we got to the island and walked around with our guide. The island itself wasn’t very impressive. The guide said that during the wet season it was a lot more green and colourful but when we were there there wasn’t much green on the trees. But we did see loads of blue footed boobies, which are hilarious. They don’t really mind you
being there and we got to watch a courtship dance and see a wee fluffy baby one! We seen some other birds, including frigate birds, the males of which have like an inflatable red chest to impress the ladies.
On a side note, our guide said my spanish was so good he thought I lived in Ecuador!! Loured with myself!!
After the quick walk around we got back on the boat. At this stage we seen loads of sea turtles swimming around our boat. Eoghan got really excited by this, he feels it has been his life’s destiny to see some!! They were pretty cool.
Then we went round to a part of the island where there is some coral to go snorkeling. We seen loads round here, lots of dory fish and some similar but not quite nemos. There was loads to see there. Me and Eoghan were the last back into the boat!
It was an absoutely brilliant trip altogether and we decided to go find somewhere to go snorkelling the next day for out last day in Puerto Lopez.
The place we stayed at had a few roosters. Roosters don’t just crow when the sun comes
up. They crow whenever they bloody feel like it. We got very little sleep at this place!!
The next day we went to the protected beach in Machalilla National Park called Playa Los Frailes to go snorkelling. We managed to be the first people there, if only for 15 minutes, and we had this little paradise all to ourselves for snorkelling. Although it wasn’t sunny it was really warm, and so was the water which was obviously great news.
We seen plenty of fish here too. Lots of little colourful fish and huge, brightly coloured starfish too. It was great but the current was a bit stronger so it was harder work!
We had our hotel room until 6pm so we had time to get washed and changed before getting the bus to Quito.
This bus was the toughest security yet, the police searched all our bags and patted down all the men. They managed to miss Eoghan’s swiss army knife so I don’t know how effective they are! Leg room wise it was fine, but the bus ride itself seemed to be constantly twisting and turning a corner. Probably because we were going back up into mountains
so it wasn’t very easy to sleep. But we got to Quito, safe and sound which was fine.
I was a bit nervous about Quito so we had made a reservation ahead of time for once which was a good idea as we arrived at about 4.30am. We got a taxi to our hostel and the man let us crash on the couch as our room wasn’t ready. But about 2 hours later he let us into our room and we could get a proper sleep at last!
We didnt see much of Quito, just wandered around the New Town where we are staying and got some lunch. They use dollars here so its easy enough to work out where was cheap. I quite like Quito and would come back for a proper visit as we didnt get to see much. During most of the useable day there was a mad thunder and lightening storm with really heavy rain and even hailstones! It was so strange because we were out in it for lunch and it was very very hot!
We decided to chill out indoors and stay dry and upload some photos as the internet wasn’t
Mother and baby boobie
I think we scared the baby a little too bad at our hostel.
We also had awesome pizza at a place round the corner, I particularly liked the fact the toilet was clean, with toilet roll, nice soap, a way to dry your hands and (and this I have never seen before) a wee mouthwash and disposable plastic cups so you can freshen your breath. If anyone is thinking of opening a restaurant I would recommend that!
So now for an early night and up early for our flight back to Peru!!
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