Of Boobies & Booty (or, How to Have Fun on the Coast without Sun - Part I)

Last Friday morning, we arose just before dawn and took to our rented car and headed west for the coast. Our final significant journey in the country was upon us - having visited the Avenue of the Volcanoes and the Amazon rainforest, the last significant trip within our reach was the Pacific coast. Our goal was to get to the coast by early afternoon, enjoy a few hours on the beach on Friday, then a day trip to Isla de la Plata (Silver Island), one more day at the beach, then back home on Monday.

The day began with a magnificent drive through Cajas National Park, and then a long descent down the mountains to the coast. We passed through downtown Guayaquil (the largest city in Ecuador, a port city of 3 million people). It was sprawling, and we hit traffic at 9:15 in the morning, but otherwise uneventful. We reached the coast by 11:00, and ultimately reached our destination, Ayampe, by 1:30 in the afternoon.

The view from our balcony

Our lodging was set in the hills above the coast in tropical rainforest. We had a nice little cabin on the hillside with a hammocked balcony overlooking the seashore below. It was a beautiful, albeit humid and damp, setting. The seashore below was rocky, but we had a good time exploring for a couple of hours, watching the crabs crawl around and the waves explode against the rocks.

The rocks didn't make for your typical, fun beach experience, but provided fun exploration - and the sound of the waves crashing into the rocks at night was wonderful while falling asleep.

Saturday morning, we awoke to a steady drizzle and very low hanging clouds - it was so foggy, we couldn't see the craggy little island about a 1/2 mile off shore. We were nervous about going on a big tour to the island, but were reassured by the hotel staff that the weather was different on the island. So we headed for the town of Puerto Lopez - the main town in the region - big enough to have a stoplight (which was the point of reference for all directions handed out). The town, like nearly all of the coast we had seen thus far, was dirty and seemingly much poorer than the mountain regions we had visited.

Puerto Lopez - the Malecon (main beach drag)

After following the directions (turn at the appliance store, before you get to the stoplight), we quickly found our tour company's office and paid for our tour to the Island. We killed thirty minutes, and then met with our tour guide and other tour mates, and headed down to the pier to catch our boat.

It was 9:30 in the morning, and the pier/beach area was busy with fisherman returning from their morning outing, and selling their catch. We would later partake in the fresh fish - calamari, shrimp, octopus and dorado - and without exception, it was wonderful.

After gazing at the fish market, we headed down the pier and walked out onto our little boat. It sat about 14 people, not including the captain on top. We were given lifejackets and instructions for safety, and we set out on the 25 mile trip to the island.

We had two tour guides with us, Galo and Klever. They were official park guides to the Machalilla National Park - a park which covers a significant region of the coast and includes Isla de la Plata. Klever explained the significance of the park, and discussed what we would be doing that day. He told us that we had about a 5% chance of seeing whales on the trip, explaining that the whales are around between May and September, and near the end of September they begin their migration to Antarctica.

Well, we were lucky. As we approached the island, the captain killed the engine and informed us that he had spotted two whales off starboard (right). Before too long, we spotted the pair of humpback whales, and they proceeded to put on a show, rolling along and "waving" their fins at us, blowing water and a couple of times, giving some spectacular jumps. Everyone on the ship watched intently, and we spent around 30 minutes just gazing at the spectacular beasts.

It was breathtaking to see this up-close-and-personal. The Isla de la Plata looms in the distance.

Our tour guides on the way to the island.

 We soon landed at the Isla de la Plata. The island is so named because of its legacy as the hiding place of pirates...and not just any pirates. The most famous of them all, Sir Francis Drake, made this island his hiding place, and allegedly buried treasure here. You can imagine the excitement of two boys upon hearing this factoid.

Pirate's booty is not why we had come, however. We had come to seek the "Poor-man's Galapagos," as it is known. It is a much simpler trip to make, being a little over an hour by boat, much cheaper, and the island contains many of the animal treasures found in the Galapagos - varieties of the booby - blue-footed, red-footed and Nazca, the frigatebird, albatross and sea lions. No giant turtles, marine iguanas or penguins, but still pretty exciting.

The boys loved the "Do-Not" images

When we reached the beach - the only harbor on the island, we found a small building. At one point, the island was privately held, and the building was used for a fishing club. The rich fisherman brought with them animals from the mainland - horses, goats, cats, dogs and the most famous of stowaways, rats. The park service was able to remove all of the immigrant animals except for the rats. They're just too smart and they reproduce too quickly, Galo explained.

Galo gave us the lay of the land, and explained the trails. He told us that the trail to the albatross nesting area was closed, because the albatross is a timid bird. It is nesting season - and if the albatross are spooked, they will fly away and abandon their young, so given their endangered state, they need to feel protected.

And so we set off on our two hour, 3-4 km hike through the island. It was wintertime on the island, so there was very little greenery. It was dry and dusty - they refer to this ecosystem here as "dry tropical forest", and the weather was warm - around 75-80 degrees. As we headed up the hill to the top of the island - around 150 meters - we passed several lizards, and the interesting tree called the "palo santo" or incense tree. Galo broke apart some twigs of the tree for us to smell - they contained a very distinct odor, as you might expect from the tree called "incense tree". It has multiple uses, from incense in catholic churches to various medical uses.

Finally, we reached the top of the island, and the main purpose of our visit - to find the booby. We did not see any of the red-footed variety, the blue-footed booby was everywhere. It was their breeding season, and we got to see several nests with eggs and hatchlings. The boobies pair up during the breeding season, and stay together for about 8 months to help raise the young. We observed more male birds sitting on eggs and feeding the young than the other way around!

A baby-booby squawks to his daddy that he's hungry. Boy can I sympathize!

The boys learned how to tell the difference between males and females - males have smaller pupils and whistle, while the females make more of a honking sound. The birds were incredibly docile and trusting of the tours, and if we had wanted to, we could have reached out and petted them. The trail was also littered with feathers from the birds. Upon collecting his first one, Finn gave it to me slyly and said, "Can you put this in your backpack? I don't want them to think I petted a bird." 

A pair. The male is on the left - note the small pupils.

Elliott captured this photo of Finn and I near a nesting booby.

We continued on our hike and saw the frigatebird nesting area. Frigatebird males are notable for their puffy red chest, but this is only on display during the mating season, which unfortunately is not in October. It's the 'stuff' the males will strut to win their mate, just as the blue feet are a source of pride for male blue-footed boobies. In any case, we saw hundreds of the pelican relative, and eventually headed back down to the harbor.

Once there, we climbed back into the boat and had lunch - sandwiches along with some fantastic watermelon and pineapple. From there, we cruised to another part of the island to do some snorkeling. Now, at this point, the temperature had dipped a bit - it was still cloudy - and was probably in the low 70s. However, the ocean in this part of the world is quite warm - nothing like the frigid Pacific I have known from California. I grabbed my snorkel gear (provided by the tour), and Finn wanted to suit up as well.

After the water

Finn got in, but decided he couldn't see through his mask, so gave up. After I swam around for a while - the snorkeling wasn't too great - both boys decided they wanted back in. However, the initial shock of the water against the cold air was too much for them - they resisted my entreaties that they'd feel fine in a minute, and got out as fast as they could.

When the snorkeling was over, it was a quiet ride back to the coast. The water was a little choppy, but after a long day of swimming and hiking, that didn't stop the boys (and several others on the tour) from taking a nice nap on the ride home.