Sunday the 10th of October 2010
The first two weeks of our trip had been very intense, hence we were both longing for a little bit of rest and which place can be better for that than the beach. After a night bus from Puyo to Guayaquil and one early in the morning from Guayaquil to Montañita, we arrived in the Ecuadorian surfers paradise on Sunday morning. The relaxed, almost hippy, little town was still asleep when we started looking for a hostel at 9 o’clock. We found one in the small, but cosy centre of the town, with a hammock on our balcony and a beautiful room in bamboo.
One of the reasons why we choose Montañita as our beach destination was the nearby location of Isla de la plata, commonly referred to as "the galapagos of the poor". We arranged a trip to the island for the next day and spend the remaining part of the day enjoying sun, see and beach. I tried body-boarding for a few minutes, but the waves were a bit too impressive and my technique not good enough to make it to the front page of the next surfers magazine.
Monday the 11th of October 2010
At 8h30 on Monday morning we waited for over half an hour for a bus to Puerto Lopez, from where our boat to Isla de la Plata would leave, that never came. Our man at Machilla tours however, quickly solved the problem by hiring a taxi so that we would make it to our boat in time. From Puerto Lopez we sailed out for Isla de la Plata together with the crew of two, our guide, a guy from Leuven, two slow Mexican women, a couple from Switzerland, a French guy and a couple from Germany. The island itself is known for its large colony of bleu-footed boobies that show off with their bright blue feet to impress the ladies. It is funny to see them dancing around kicking their feet in the air all the time, as if they want to say: “ Hey, look how nicely blue my feet are…” Beside the blue-footed boobies, that all the time stubbornly stay in the middle of the road, we encountered a huge albatros chick. The extremely dry island further houses frigat birds and piqueros enmascarados (masked boobies).
Before we left the island, we all took a swim near the coral reef that surrounds the island. Despite our limited experience with snorkelling we enjoyed our moment in between the fish.
Back in Puerto Lopez we stuck around a bit to see the Pelicans jump over the breaking waves in group (instead of flying a bit deeper into the sea where they could just keep on floating) and to see the frigate birds at work steeling the fish from other birds (the feathers of the frigate birds are not water resistant, the guys rely on steeling fish because they cannot fish themselves).
On our way back to Montañita, the bus driver dropped us of at the Kundalini hostel where we arranged our stay for the next night.
Tuesday the 12th of October 2010
Tuesday was a beautiful day with clear blue skies, ideal to relax in the sun the whole day with a refreshing dip in the sea now and then. We both liked it that much that we decided to stay yet another day in Montañita. This also allowed us to finally get the blog online that was a long time coming. We were on the road for over 2 weeks now without too much information to the home front. We therefore exploited the wifi-availibility to skype with our family with a view on the beach. At the end of the day we relaxed all day taking full advantage of the sunshine and the blog was postponed for another day…
Wednesday the 13th of October 2010
On Wednesday the weather was slightly worse than the day before, finally we found the right moment to set up this blog. Nele started typing the first texts, while I retreated towards the beach to drink a “mate” with the Argentinian guys that stayed in the same hostel. In the afternoon, the roles were turned around, Nele enjoyed the sun, sea and beach, I fought a fearless battle with blogspot to get our messages online in a more or less structured way.
Near sunset we rented a surfboard for an hour as we figured we had to try before leaving. The waves were – for what we are concerned – huge, but after a lot of trial and error, I nevertheless managed to reach the beach standing on the board on at least two occasions – good enough. Nele quit earlier, mainly because the waves played with here rather than that she played with the waves.
Thursday the 14th of October 2010
On Thursday we left our excellent hostel in Montañita and headed out for Cuenca through Guayaquil.
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