Puerto Lopez

Puerto Lopez is a dusty little coastal town with little going on except relaxing. Their one claim to fame, much the same as Hermanus (South Africa), is the whales. Being out of whale season we spent our middays there lying around in hammocks to get out of the fierce equatorial sun and spent our nights and mornings exploring the surroundings and sampling the local dishes.

Puerto Lopez

relaxing in aforementioned hammocks

The food here is incredible! We tried deep fried prawns, calamari, cooked some fresh fish ourselves, made fruit salad and created some very smooth smoothies. Our first day was spent doing nothing at all. The second day doing virtually nothing. But the third day we went on a boat trip to the Isla de la Plata (Silver Island, a popular pirate legend) for some scuba diving (FINALLY). And it was awesome... The vis was not particulary good, similar to the Cape, but the water was nice and warm (21 degrees) and the marine life incredible! We did two dives at two points of the island while the others in the group explored the island. The first we averaged at about 12m and dived along coral and volcanic rock. The second dive was shallower but featured a lot more coral. We saw many big moray eels, puffer fish, vibrant tropical fish, big game fish, trumpet fish, pipe fish, a sea turtle and some sea snakes! To crown it all a school of devil rays passed close to the boat jumping clean out of the water! It was expensive, but definitely worth it.

the barren wave battered Isla de la Plata

approaching the island

me, smiling for the camera

a big friendly looking moray

Mr. Turtle

a venomous sea snake

trumpet fish with other fish

another moray

The whole area is part of the Machalilla National Park, the only coastal reserve in Ecuador. It includes Isla de la Plata, many hectares of tropical dry forest and some parts of rainforest. We spent our last day in the tropical dry forest. It's dry, humid and VERY hot, but the beaches are incredible! Miles of totally deserted, beautiful swimming beaches. We stopped at a lookout on top of a cliff for a panoramic view of the area and lunch. A whole spit-roasted chicken that we tore to pieces with our bare hands. Hmmm...

Lloyd resting a bit

the crabs make the little balls of sand

Machalilla Park

the almost deserted Los Frailes beach

Last night we caught an reasonably uncomfortable bus to Quito (11h), the capital of Ecuador. Here we will stay today to sort out flight details. Tomorrow it's off to the jungle... Neil