Blogs from Puerto López, West, Ecuador, South America - page 5

So, I know this is coming about 3 weeks late. After a crazy final few weeks in Ecuador, and a close-to-disastrous trip home I am finally wrapping up my blog with my final posts. Bear with me (and thanks for your patience). So, Saturday morning I woke up in shock to find the time to be nearly 10:30 am. Why was I not woken up 2 hours ago? Where was the call to breakfast? Have I been abandoned? Nope. I was simply in Puerto Lopez. This was vacation time. Here, I stayed with Elsa, the host mother living in this small and simple fishing and tourist vacation spot. She is a super nice woman, totally laid back and very welcoming. After a lovely breakfast of rolls, eggs and juice, Royal and I slowly and leisurely got ... read more

Only those who have lived near the beach will be able to truly grasp the overwhelming joy I felt when I heard the roar of the ocean, felt the warmth of the sand between my toes and smelt the salty waves crashing on the seashore… A story about the boy with the curly hair and the girl who always wore a smile. Jeremy and Jess anticipated buying bicycles and riding along some 120-odd coastal kilometers named the Ruta del Sol and camping along the way. Instead they left Puyo on a Friday (after an empanada cooking class) and arrived in the lovely seaside town of Puerto Lopez late the following morning. The two immediately walked the 3 blocks to the beach and were rewarded with a view of an expansive beach and fishermen unloading the days ... read more

Hola, We enjoyed our stay in the high Andes at Cajas National Park. We saw llamas feeding on the high paramo and giant conebills foraging in the world´s highest woodland (Polylepis Forest). The landscape was gorgeous with mountains, bromeliads and hundreds of lakes (with andean pintail ducks fighting over territories). We are now down on the coast in the dry forest at Machalilla National Park. It feels like spring time here because everything is bursting into bloom and all the birds are singing, but it is really the beginning of the wet season. There are giant green Ceiba Trees that are truly unique with their ballooning trunks (pictures to come soon). Our stay in Ecuador has been profound. We visited the high Andes, the Galapagos, west andean rainforest, east andean rainforest, dry forest, amazon, high elevation ... read more

Service yesterday and today. Very interesting. Meet the group in the morning then get set up with a partner and start walking. Streets are dirt, houses are mostly brick some dont have doors many dont have windows but the people are very nice, everyone will talk to us and we have long conversations. Yesterday I got to work with a foriegner, a brother from florida who took most of the doors and let me try a presentation. But today i was sent out with a young brother named brian who speaks no english. Made service very interesting and entertaining. After service yesterday Josh and i rented a surf board and tryed to surf. Very difficult but a lot of fun. Today after service we packed 20 of us mostly kids into dene's van and drove north ... read more

Isla de la Plata - Silver Island Yesterday, we took a day trip to Isla de la Plata, 20 miles off the coast of Puerto Lopez. It was about a 1 and a half hour boat ride to the island. Along the way we stopped to watch the humpback whales just meters from our boat. At first there were only 2 whales, but apparently the sound of the boat motor “calls” to the whales so in the end there were about 5 or 6 whales swimming near the boat. There are enormous creatures (3-4 tons). It was very neat to see. On the island there are two different paths you can take, each path is about 7-10km in length and takes about 2-3 hours to walk. Because of the national park regulations, only one boat load ... read more