After our long day at Isla de la Plata, we returned home and before long, we were all fast asleep. It rained much of the night, and we awoke to find another gray, misty day. Walking outside, we were greeted by many enormous snails who came out in the rain.
After having a wonderful breakfast of pancakes at the lodge, we piled in the car and headed for Los Frailes, a beach inside Machalilla National Park. When talking to people about things to on the coast, Los Frailes was always among people's top 3 items. We arrived to find the beach relatively empty, which wasn't surprising given the overcast and relatively cool day. The beach itself was pretty, but it wasn't stunning by any stretch of the imagination. The beach was situated on a little bay, with rocky hills jutting out in the water on either side of the half-mile-long stretch.
The boys had a blast, though, as children tend to do on beaches. The water kept them warm, and the waves crashed very close to the beach (they refer to such waves as "playera" here), allowing them to play - none were too big to be scary. They danced in and out of the water all day long, jumping over waves, running from them, and riding on them on the hotel-provided boogie boards.
Afterwards, we took a little hike up to a lookout tower on one of the ridges. It was a nice hike through the dry, dead forest, with lots of flora to explore along the way - more Palo Santo (Incense) Trees, and lots of cool looking cactus groves. At the top of the lookout, we noticed on the other side of the ridge there was another cove, this one quite rocky. We saw a few others over there, and hiked down ourselves.
Once we got over there, it was stunning. The shore was mostly a great big rock, and we stood there watching the waves batter the shore, and then run back down across the rocks to the sea. Where there wasn't any rock, the sand - which was pretty white on the other side of the ridge - was black volcanic sand...which was pretty neat because 5000 miles to the Northwest, Uncle Matt and Aunt René were on the black-sand beaches of Hawaii.
After our hike, we returned back to the hotel and had a nice dinner of freshly caught seafood. We relaxed in the lodge, watching a few innings of the World Series, before retiring to bed. After waking in the morning, we hopped back in the car and returned to Cuenca, happy in our final trip through the Southern part of Ecuador.
In all, we were able to conquer (or at least visit) the three primary ecosystems Ecuador has to offer - the Avenue of the Volcanoes and the mountain region; the Amazon rainforest to the East; and the coastal region to the West. What an adventure this has been!
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