New Year's Eve, Day, and Leaving

Friday, New Year's Eve, I was THRILLED to be going to Isla de la Plata to see the Blue Footed Boobies. I got to drive the car (which was a stick shift!) to Puerta Lopez. Mariscal gave me very good directions to find the tour office. I arrived to speak with a gentleman who spoke no English. Luckily, my tour guide arrived, and she spoke English. I didn't realize how dependent I was on Matthew to translate everything! I know a word or two, but obviously not enough. I arrived early so I had time to kill. I walked to the pharmacia to buy bug repellent and a bottle of water. It was finally time to go when a family arrived with a puppy. Really? So we had to wait on them while they took the puppy home. They really thought they could bring a dog to a bird sanctuary. Anyway...

Everyone removed their shoes/sandals and put them in a bag. We all walked in the water to get into our boat. By this point, everyone knew I spoke virtually no Spanish. Some of them asked where I was from, and we would converse as long as their English and my Spanish would allow. They were all so nice. The boat ride lasted an hour. This is one of my favorite pics as we left Puerta Lopez.

Our boat arrived to Isla de la Plata. Our guide told everyone something about lunch being later and gave us a muffin and bottle of water. The boat pulled ashore, and we climbed out. After finding our shoes/sandals in the bag, everyone goes to the foot washing station to get the sand out of toes. Yes... this is a communal foot washing area. I'm not sure how often/if at all the water is 'freshened'.

After getting my Chaco's back on and a potty break, off we went up a long trail. We hiked for maybe 20 minutes before we spotted the first Booby. We were all so excited that we took a hundred pictures of this family feeding the baby. Super cool!

Here we are taking pics of another Booby family (which was more common than originally thought). I love this picture because of the orange cover you see in the background. There was an older, grandmother traveling with us. Her grandsons kept her covered with this wrap. The duo up front with me (if my poor Spanish served me at all) was teasing that she must be a saint. It was pretty funny.

These two were hanging out on a cliff edge.

The Booby babies get so big! They stay in the nest for three months, and then they are read to fly. They don't get the blue feet until they are sexually mature.

This is my poster Blue Footed Booby.

All in all, my two hour hike around this Island was incredible! I did not post any pictures of the Frigate bird because they are mean. Their feathers do no allow them to get wet, so they can't dip down into the water for food. Frigates can only skim the surface of the water hoping for a fish. If they have no luck, they will beat up a Booby in the air until it throws up the fish it caught. I don't like Frigates.

After our amazing hike, we get back on the boat and travel around the island. We were served watermelon, pineapple, and a couple of little sandwiches. By the time we finished, we were anchored and ready for snorkeling! I was super excited for this, too, because I had done it in Nassau, Bahamas and Cozumel, Mexico.

I get my flippers and mask last, and I ease into the water. I swim out a little and can feel the currents. I am not a strong swimmer. I tried to put my face in the water, breathe normally, but I just couldn't do it. I was panicking because of the currents, so I swam back towards the boat. One of the gals was hanging onto a life saver and looking down into the water. Brilliant! I latched on, and the guy on the boat sent one out just for me! I floated for a good 20 minutes. I saw some pretty corals, clown fish, trumpet fish, and a "Dora" fish. Needless to say it was pretty awesome.

It was time to head back. The water was super rough! Everyone would scream and laugh when the boat rose up and slammed down into the water. Then one of the engines went haywire, and we stopped dead in the water. It was scary because we were at the mercy of the waves! Finally the engine worked and no one was laughing anymore. We were all worn out too. After arriving to shore, I was trying to tell people "Thanks" and "Bye" and they told me "Ciao". It was cool.

I drove myself back to Finca in time to find Matthew napped and refreshed after a hard day of surfing. One last dinner at El Paso. It was bittersweet because I really liked the couple that owned the place. They even brought us to the kitchen so we could see how they cooked our meals. They even sat us a the table that could see the T.V.

After supper, we commenced to celebrating the New Year. At about 10:00pm, I HAD to take a nap. At two minutes until midnight, Matthew woke me up in time to see the fire and kiss at midnight! But then someone said their phone time had not hit midnight yet, so we counted down for a second time. It was great! Everyone walked out to the beach because there seemed to be fireworks, but it wasn't as exciting as it had seemed. We returned to Finca and the more intense people went to the other town for an all night celebration! Matthew and I stayed at Finca with a cool couple from Columbia.

New Year's Day we slept in. It was our last day at the beach so we headed down for some reading. Matthew finally decided to get a board and do one last round of surfing. I'm so glad he did, because it went so much better than the day before. I was coming close to finishing my book. We had one last dinner at Finca with our new friends from New Zealand (who taught English in Cuenca), Switzerland, Germany, and Puerto Lopez. Since we had a car, we offered our friend from New Zealand a ride back to Guayaquil so she could catch a bus back to Cuenca. We got up at 4:15ish and left Fina Punta Ayampe by 5:00am. By 8ish am we made it GYE airport. We said good byes to our new friend. Matthew settled with the car rental while I tried to pay our taxes to leave the country. I was already stressing. It was so silly of me! We had more than enough time. We got our boarding passes (which you need to do first!), paid our taxes, and went through security. Matthew and I had plenty of time to eat a good breakfast, and I had time to finish my book.

Short story long... big plane back to Miami (I got to watch "Eat, Pray, Love"). We had a 4 hour layover, then it was back to Atlanta. We arrived at 9:45pm (remember we had been up since 4:15am). We find the truck and off we go! I had already called in for a sub for Monday, so I let Matthew sleep while I drove. We pulled up to the house around 1:30am. Almost 22 hours later! I slept in the next morning, did all the laundry, took a nap... it was a great decision.

I LOVED our trip to Ecuador. I feel like my pictures were not as good as our Mexico trip, but I think our extended beach trip was worth it! I hope we return. Finca Punta Ayampe was a wonderful place to stay, if anything, just to have Mariscal take care of you.

Ecuador is growing, and all of the roads were new. The country is growing, and I hope tourism continues to grow in this country. If you are a resort only kind of person, I don't recommend it. If you are willing to 'rough it' a little, then this will be your kind of place! The people are so very nice and the scenery is so beautiful!