Puerto Lopez
After a great time spent in the Surf Town of Montañita, we left sunday evening on the Ruta del Sol (Basically the north/south route along the coast of Ecuador) headed north towards Puerto Lopez. The town is situated on a nice large half-moon bay and is a popular tourist destination in the high season of June through September where boats usher tourists 40 km out to sea to the Isla de la Plata to see killer whales.
The island, charmingly known as Galapagos for the Poor, is a fraction of the cost of the real thing, yet I’m told with a similar feel, with exotic tropical pacific animals like the Blue-footed Boobie. Since we were on a budget, we decided to instead take an even cheaper trip with a local fisherman out to a nearby island, Isla Salango, to do some fishing and some snorkling around the small reef there.
It was a long day under the sun and without proper dosage of sun-screen for the day, my back is on fire as I write this. We caught some cool fish including a 1 lb. guavina, a 2 lb. aguja, and a 6 lb. guayaipe which we brought back and Paco, the capitan cooked up for us. It was quite tastey. Today we leave for the north once again going to Cruzita to try to do some hang-gliding for all of $15 dollars and then on to Bahía de Caráquez to do some cave exploration.