Puerto Lopez. And Montañita. Once again. One last time.

Back in Quito I wasn’t too motivated to have big action going on. Most of the time I spent in my room, reading, chatting, watching movies. One needs time to digest all those incredible impressions I collected throughout the last month.

My friends still made me leave the house every once in a while, may it be to host a radio show on Ecuadorian Tourism Radio or to see Manu Chao live. Even though it rained cats and dogs, we enjoyed the performance underneath our 1$ rain ponchos.

And Bea and I mixed our first Ecuadorian cola beer. :) (Including a free 50% or so re-fill.)

I don’t know, how it came, but somehow our two mates Madhuri & Malte told us to hurry up after Manu Chao had played its last song, to still jump into a bus as long as they weren’t completely overcrowded. Unluckily, that tactics didn’t work out: The last bus had already left, the next one was supposed to arrive in an hour or so. Madhuri, Malte and Sarina decided to take a cab, Bea and I decided to safe those dollars and walk. And get lost in endless discussions. Awesome.

When I finally arrived back home around midnight, my two flatmates weren’t there yet. I called Sarah – she told me she was still at the concert. We had obviously skipped the main gig of a band called Calle 13, pretty famous around here. Sarah reported that those dudes were heating up the stadium way better than Manu Chao had before. Sad story.

Anyway, one of the results of the discussions was, that I seriously thought about heading back to the coast. Again. Bea, Malte & Madhuri would leave on Thursday night – and, honestly, I couldn’t find any reason why not to join. Grey and rainy Quito would be way to boring should these three guys leave town as well, so I decided to join. Not a failure.

A cozy night ride later we arrived at Puerto Lopez around 5am. Everything was still closed, obviously, even though there weren’t few people hanging out on the streets. No clue what they did there. But we preferred to set up camp at the beach. Watch the sunrise. In the west. Yeah right. *g*

We finally found a hostel that sold us a room for the four of us, booked in and went to negotiate the cheapest price for a trip the Isla de la Plata, an island approximately 1,5 hours from the mainland, which got its name in a time when pirates still ruled the seas: While the Spanish crown was exploiting the mainland, the English crown simply paid its pirates to set up camp at Isla de la Plata and mug the Spanish galleys passing by. Pretty smart tactics, to be honest…

We found the tour operator of our choice, paid 25$ per head (for a full-day trip, including lunch), and began our holidays. Beach chairs were easy to organize, and everyone who offered them also sold those delicious fruit smoothies I had enjoyed with Carina only a week earlier. But there’s stuff in this world you can’t get enough from… (Chilling out is one of them…)

To be honest – we didn’t really leave the beach that day. Neither did we stop consuming fruit shakes. And I’m not sure if we spent more than 10$ on them per person… :)

The next day we started with a self-bought breakfast, bread, cheese, watermelon. All you need. And then we prepared for our island trip: Sunscreen (really important, as Bea burned herself really badly the day before), towels, hats, swimming gear, water bottle, camera. Don’t forget a pack of blue sky and sunshine. And go.

The local fishermen were already up and hard-working, when we boarded the boat.

Around 16 tourists were on board, around 5 nationalities present. Plus two guides and a captain.

Upon arrival we left the boat, refilled our water bottles and started walking. Straight up the hill. Too exhausting for an elderly, Peruvian lady, who returned with her daughter. The others made it up to the first resting point, where we divided the whole gang into two groups – a faster one and a slower one. The faster group were basically us plus three other guys, amongst them an Argentinian lady who maybe should have chosen the other group.

Still, we enjoyed the amazing nature…

…a fascinating landscape…

…and an astonishing abundance of wildlife – amongst others loads of blue footed boobies…

…as well as their relatives, the Nazca boobies.

The island never got really inhabited due to a lack of freshwater. There is some, but not much. And it is absolutely essential. We sweated like the Russian national soccer team after playing overtime in Saudi Arabia…

But hey, we made our way back to the starting point, boarded the boat again and got a watermelon snack in-between. And as sharing is caring, our guides showed us how to feed turtles with the leftovers…

Some 10 minutes later we reached our snorkeling spot, and jumped straight into the water.

The gear wasn’t the best, and so wasn’t the spot itself. Okay, I might be spoiled since the Galapagos Islands, but still, there wasn’t much to see. So Malte, Madhuri and I enjoyed taking pictures of ourselves…

…while Bea was up on the deck to treat her sunburn… ^^

We snacked a little, I napped a little, and then we snacked again back on the mainland, while sitting in our beach chairs, sipping fruit shakes and admiring the sunset.

The following day would be our last in Puerto Lopez – for now. We decided against heading to Los Freijles and against Agua Blanca – but we wouldn’t leave without another oreo shake, our favourite. :)

Next stop: Montañita. Once again. *g*

We found a cozy place right at the beach front, where hammocks on the terrace swing and where one can rent a mattress on the top floor for 5$ per night. The mattresses weren’t thick (in fact, we even had two each), but the top floor was not closed by walls – a fresh ocean breeze would blow underneath the roof. Amazing.

We met up with Julez, to then follow him to the beach and watch him giving surf instructions to a group of Danish youngster, all of whom had just graduated from high school.

Because we were on holidays, we stayed out on the beach until the sun set. That is when hunger made us look for a place to feast – and that again was when I showed everyone the way to Rastapan once more.

The rest of the night was spent at the beach again, under the stars, lost in endless discussions…

How would you guys start a day in Montañita, if you have read my previous blog posts?

Yeah, right, with a massive vitamin bomb…

Because Julez’ boss didn’t want to rent us some surfboards in the early morning, we just took it easy, hung out again, surfed the internet instead, bought our bus tickets back to Quito and enjoyed our last day at the beach. Malte, Madhuri & Bea would fly back to Germany in two days’ time, we had to return. Unfortunately.

Bye Julez, bye Montañita, bye Ecuadorian coast. I don’t know when I’ll see the ladder two of you again...