We have decided to put off traditional commitments (work, mortgage, etc) and travel to South America instead! We plan to use this blog as a real-time journal of our experiences, and as a way to share this adventure with our loved ones back home. Check out our first post for the story on the blog's title. We would love to hear from you during our travels, leave us a comment!
We knew that we would be heading farther away from the equator and into South America's winter based on our trip timing and planning, so while we still could, we headed to Montanita, Ecuador, for some serious lazing about and fun in the sun. This town is the quintessential surfer bum town, as indicated by its official mascot:
In general, shoes/shirt/sobriety are optional, but we decided to *try* and be productive by taking a week of Spanish classes.
Andrew using a headlamp to do his Spanish homework
during apower outage. So diligent!
We stayed at a lovely hostel on the ocean, and when not in class or playing in the water, spent most of our time swinging in hammocks, nursing beers and sunburns. Tough life!
Our daily views:
About the most exciting thing we did was walk 4 kilometers out of town on the hunt for the Montanita Brewing Company, the only microbrewery on the Ecuadorian coast, and possibly the only microbrewery in the country! (The owner is American and has to import all his barley. Go figure.) Turns out that those 4 kilometers out of town were also 4 kilometers past the restaurant, but it did afford us a view off the nearby cliff line.
And with this stop, our time in lovely Ecuador drew to a close. Gearing up for a 20+ hour bus ride into Peru, on which going #2 is prohibited (don't ask me how they regulate this) included some major faith in the little Pink Pill. Andrew had his doubts but was basically willing to try anything, and I kept the faith. Here's to you, Pepto!
We found this fish market while staying in Puerto Lopez to see Playa Los Frailes and Isla de la Plata. It turned out to be quite an experience in itself. I believe hammerheads recently became protected and require special licenses to hunt and sell. This may be why they were cutting off the heads before selling the bodies? In any case, there were many other interesting and impressive catches this particular morning.
Playa Los Frailes
Not really Playa Los Frailes :-/
We heard of a really nice beach just outside of town so we hired a rickshaw (three-wheeled motorcycle-driven taxi) to drop us off in the morning and pick us up later in the afternoon. After walking down a 2 mile long trail to the ocean, we found a nice secluded beach with tons of tide pools and little caves in the cliff face. If we had done a little bit more research before setting out, we would have known this was simply a smaller beach next to the famous Playa Los Frailes. But alas, we didn't know and spent the entire day at this smaller beach.
In the end, it was probably nicer that we didn't spend much time at the more crowded, more popular beach. We walked about 20 or 30 minutes along cliff face and found several small caves and not a single person :-)
We witnessed a crab turf war. It seemed that the lighter colored crab wanted the house of the red crab. It slowly approached the hole and got chased away at least a dozen times over the course of half an hour. Apart from some of these larger crabs, there were literally thousands of tiny baby crabs that scattered as we walked across the rocks. At times it appeared as the ground was shifting under our feet.
It was in our quest to leave the beach that we realized we never made it to the main beach. We walked for 30 or 40 minutes crossing Playa Los Frailes and another small beach with this rock formation they called "turtle." A local was nice enough to snap a picture of us.
Isla de la Plata
On our second morning in Puerto Lopez, we traveled 40km by boat to Isla de la Plata (Island of the Silver). This was our budget friendly alternative to visiting the Galapagos Islands (it's referred to as "the poor man's Galapagos"). While Isla de la Plata isn't nearly as exotic and beautiful as the Galapagos, it allowed us to see several species of birds that only live on the Galapagos and Isla de la Plata.
Blue Footed Boobies!!! These birds were beautiful and had no qualms about us walking up to within a few feet of them.
What's the story behind the island's name? We heard two origins of the name. The first is that Sir Frances Drake buried a large stash of silver on the island that has never been found. A guide told us that the island is more likely named after it's appearance in the sunrise. Patches of the exposed rock shimmer like silver as the sun reflects off the island. Here's the secret: these silvery patches of rock are actually just bird poop. Yep, that's right. There are enough birds on this island to paint large portions of the surface white :-).
We didn't manage to catch a glimpse of any Red Footed Boobies but there were several other strange birds.
We saw more than just birds; there were several neat looking lizards and snakes. Certainly not the Galapagos but still pretty fun considering the Galapagos would have cost 50 times more.
Our tour group was lucky enough to spot sea turtles while boating to our snorkeling destination. Maybe "luck" had less to do with it than the turtles' taste for pineapple, which our guide kept tossing into the water.
