la costa caliente!

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These were now my last days in Ecuador! I spent a week on the coast in a small fisherman´s town called Puerto Lopez. Now is the season for whale watching, so of course I did it! Whales are now in the bay to get their cubs and to eat enough to get the warming fat they need for their long and tiring journey to the cold cold north. The first day I arrived in Puerto Lopez I went on a boat and we saw a whole group of whales. I had a few glimpse of their enormous humps and I saw a tail. But unfortunately they were now too heavy to attempt any jumps from all the food they had eaten! The rest of the day I spent on la Isla de la Plata (island of silver/money) – it is also called “the Galapagos for the poor”. We saw plenty of blue feet boobies who performed their funny slow walz with their big feet. At this dry time of the year they nest all over the place spraying their droppings around to prevent intruders from coming into the nests which are on the ground. This is one of the names origins. For the birds are feeding on silvery fish of the bay which make even the droppings glow at night. Another story to the name is that it has been a refuge for Francis Drake, a famous pirate. He used the island to observe and target the Spanish ships which would be filled with Inka gold.
Most of my days I spent on the beach. Finally I had some sun and warm climate, Quito was awfully cold! Los Frailes is a beach in one of the national parks, and as such was spotlessly clean and only very few people took the trouble of going there. It was just great. One day I was accompanied by an American girl from NY who is a biologist. It is increadible what you get to see and hear about nature having such a guide around! We had a great time climbing rocks, discovering caves and seeing different beaches. Here I also met with a really nice Italian couple. I get more and more the impression, that travelers are an own kind of people. You get to hear the same story over and over again: society in my home country strangles me, I can´t be free there, everything is so conservative, it is a country for old people! This is what the Italians told me too. On the last day I let my sunburn rest for a while and headed out to Aguas Blancas. It is a lagoon, in fact just a big stinky hole of water which smells of badeggs. It is supposed to be good for you and you rub yourself with lots of mud. So I had my Spa day in that muddy water, and today I have softer skin 😉
I am in an Internet Café now hoping that my flight to Peru will somehow work out tomorrow. All other flights are fine, just this one is a pain in the ass. But I look forward to Peru, somehow I will get there!

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