A National Park, an Island and a Fishermen's Town

We’ve just returned from a short trip to the coast and I am already missing it…Stu had a few meetings there, so we flew out to Manta (Manabí province) early on Friday morning and returned last night.

Jipijapa

The coast of Ecuador has a completely different feel to the Highlands. Suddenly time slows down and everyone seems to take a relaxed approach to life. We flew into Manta airport and took a car to Puerto López, which is 1.5 hours’ drive south. The road takes you past some interesting places including Montecristi (the home of the Panama hat), Jipijapa (an important agricultural village with a massive corn statue at the entrance), Puerto Cayo (a coastal town), Los Frailes Beach (a beautiful sandy beach), etc… 

Puerto López itself is not that interesting, but what the village lacks in charm it more than compensates with the wildlife and nature that surrounds it. To the north and east you can go to “The Parque Nacional Machalilla”, a unique habitat with a dry and wet forest. Out in the sea there is the Isla de la Plata (Silver Island) and every year (between June and September) the humpback whales come to this little coastal town to mate and give birth.

Stu’s contacts organised for us to join the Park Guides for a four hour hike and horseback ride across the national park. Two Belgian girls (Community Work students) joined our little expedition where we saw some amazing trees, monkeys, orchids, etc…

Isla de la Plata

The next day we headed out to Isla de la Plata (Silver Island). During the previous days we got told that there had been whale sightings. Unfortunately, we didn’t see any, but we did see a fair amount of birdlife which reminded us of the Galápagos Islands. No wonder they call Isla de la Plata “the Galápagos of the poor”! We also did some snorkelling. Despite it being far less spectacular than that of the Galapagos, we saw beautiful fish and coral.

On our last day we went out with the guys from Equilibrio Azul, a charity which looks to protect and preserve the diverse marine ecosystem. The task was to capture turtles, so that they could tag them and create a census / database. The charity works with the help of volunteers (mainly foreign) who come to do some practical work during the summer break. It was very interesting to hear what they had to say and the challenges they face with the local fishermen (fishing and tourism are the main sources of income in the village).

Looking for turtles

The sun came out to say good-bye to us and at that point I really didn’t want to leave. Throughout the days we’d met some lovely people at the Hosteria Mandala (http://www.hosteriamandala.info/) and I felt that our time there had been cut short. There were more stories to be told and more tips to be exchanged. Some of our new friends headed to Baños, others to Guayaquil, others to Montañita (a surf village further south) whilst we returned to Quito.

One thing we did make the most of was the local fish-based cuisine: ceviche, “merluza”, “calamares”, etc… Yum!