Puerto Lopez de Ecuador, 16 - 19 Deciembre

Puerto Lopez






Puerto Lopez, the smell hits you first, then you look up and see chaos emerging in the sky - thousands of sea birds wrestling for position to swoop down and steal the latest catch from fisherman unloading their haul, bucket by bucket......all day.
With just 10 days in Ecuador we targeted the popular southern coastline, a 3 hour bus ride from Guayaquil. Half a dozen or so small fishing and surfing towns dot this lush coastline. Bordering a national park we opted for Puerto Lopez first as a base for checking out the area.






By night we frequented some of the many bamboo beach-side bars which lined the length of populated beach. Cheap cocteles, cerbeza's y hamburguesas! One of my favorite things from Ecuador was the $1.00 600ml beers!!  

Isla de la Plata is an island 20km off the coast from Puerto Lopez and part of the national park. We jumped on a day trip out there to check out some of the birds and snorkelling on offer.



Blue-footed Boobie, a stange seagull / duck cross. They spray acidic excrement out from their nest to keep rodents away!




Young Blue-footed Boobie, or just a Boobie at this stage.  



A spot of snorkelling, and Turtugas!



Muy bien!

Being in Puerto Lopez we thought what a prime opportunity to dabble in a little fishing of our own. Being a relatively small town we saw the same faces quite frequently, so we became friendly with our first mototaxi driver that caught us off the bus - subsequently he offered to take us out for a couple of hours on his family boat with 2 of his bro's.

Clare showing how its done.

We were initially very excited when Jonny and Jose threaded up our rods with what looked like lures that could catch whales, however after an hour of trawling not a bite prevailed. Anchoring up on a small island reef in a pretty rough channel we then proceeded to unwind our old-school hand lines....and then it was all on!

We found a school of reef fish which obviously did not catch on why all their mates were disappearing. In the space of about 40mins the 4 of us hauled in about 30 fish! Unfortunately after numero tres for Clare, she had to retire to stay focused on the relentlessly bobbing horizon. Sea sickness being a contagious phenomenon, after 7 fish, my fishing too came to a salivating end! Fortunaltey an awesome beach was close by and Clare and I jumped off to find our legs again.


Back in calmer waters and having conquered our nausea, we enjoyed freshly prepared Ceviche - an Ecuadorain dish prepared with the fish we caught and cooked by marinating in lime juice, with red onion cucumber and tomato - es fantastico!

Sweet beach bungalow Numero Tres

After 3 nights in Puerto Lopez, we jumped on the equally nauseating local bus for Montanita - just down the road.