If you want to visit the beaches and islands around Puerto Lopez and do outdoor sports you can book a tour at one of the many agencies at the "Malecon". Or you can have a drink at one of the beach huts, hope you´ll meet a former tourist guide and spend the money on food and drinks ;-). I, of course, did the last one and it worked out perfectly. While I was enjoying my papaya and mango juice I got to know Roberto, who used to work for one of the agencies a couple of years ago but now owns a bar and is free untill 8pm to play sports and relax on the beach. We went to play beach volley and were lucky enought to have a French guy in the opposite team who played worse than me and made it easy for us to win - and for me to get accepted in the team. Later on Roberto offered to take me kayaking, snorkeling and surfing and of course, my new passion, fishing on the following days! In the evening we went dancing at the beach and I got another salsa lesson - barefeet in the sand next to a camp fire - que vida boa (oups, buena!)! ;-)
(And I got to see some extraordinary wildlife when I went to the outhouse of Roberto`s bar last night - there was a huge spider sitting right in the toilet bowl! Thank God I am not one of those persons who flips out when they see a spider - I was just a bit concerned about its choice of habitat ;-))
Today we met at 10am for an "expedition" - a surprise, Roberto didn´t want to tell me more. Just that I had to take some drinking water, bikini and a towel. We went off by bus and then hiked down to a little hidden beach which has beautifull rock formations and caves (where according to Roberto pirates used to hide and now dwarfs live) . From there we climbed over the rocks to some larger beach and walked maybe half an hour, an hour to the end of the beach. Roberto kind of reminds me of Forrest Gump - he is really cute and doesn´t say much. But if he says something is pretty cool and you keep wondering if he is joking or not. Like when we saw some snails I told him that the French eat them. He didn´t say much and I was not sure if he got it. But then when we spoke about the French guy and how bad he played volley, Roberto just said its because he eats snails. I am still not sure if it was a joke or not, but I´m liking it. He can also go hours without talking which is kind of relaxing. From the end of the beach the original plan was to take a kayak to the island of Salango where you can go snorkeling and watch sea birds. As the kayaks where a bit expensive we asked some of the local boys to take us to the islands by boat. On the way to the island Roberto spotted the diving boat of one of his friends who takes tourist to dive and snorkel. We entered the boat like pirates and went snorkeling, too. It was just amazing - we saw many beautifull fishes, yellow and blue striped ones and one that reminded me of the Alzheimer-fish in "Finding Nemo". Actually I had to think of the movie all the time and guess I´ll watch it again when I get to Rio ;-)
We went back with the boat to Puerto Lopez and headed for the market where we bough fresh tuna and vegetables and platanos. Roberto asked me to cook something and actually it turned out to be quite yummy. He also showed me how to prepare "patacones", one of my favourite food here in Ecuador. As we used the kitchen in his bar we had the soundsystem on full volume all the time - listening to Jack Johnson, Bob Marley, Orishas... how much better can life be :-)
After dinner we went to play and watch volley, swim and run on the beach. I see a chance of losing my traveling-belly, caused by yummy south American food ;-) Tomorrow we will go fishing in the morning and later mountain biking... guess I will get stuck here for some more days ;-)
No comments:
Post a Comment