Learning to Dive with Whales

The jump!
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Really great to get a taste of coastal Ecuador and very unlike other parts of the country. The people seemed livelier and the temperatures were certainly warmer. Puerto Lopez is a fishing village in a horseshoe bay with a sandy beach. We were here primarily for Carl to finish his diving course and had booked a couple of days on the boat with the dive company. We were also really hopeful of seeing whales on our trips out through the water and we weren't disappointed.

I was also thrilled to see turtles as we lunched and lots of blue-footed boobies on Isla de la Plata.

Almost!!
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On day two of Carl´s course, I also did some dives. The first was so-so but the second which we all did together was beautiful. Gorgeous underwater scenery and plenty of sea life. It was a short dive - Carl´s lung capacity and excitement conspired to send us up to the surface quickly but great fun.

Unfortunately, Carl had had a bad experience with drowning in the morning and wanted to properly overcome his fear so we took deep breaths and signed away another fortune for him to do his Advanced course - 5 more dives set to reassure.

Getting ready... Getting nervous
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Personally, I couldn´t face any more days on the boat despite the lovely crew and decided to cycle out to the Los Frailes beach. A nice ride and beautiful bays. Being befriended by Johnny the policeman had its downsides but I at least got to practice some spanish and he didn´t hang around all that long.

The cycle back to town was harder so I rewarded myself with a good coffee and an enormous apple & cinnamon pancake overlooking the beach at sunset. Man, this travelling lark is hard.

The Tongue
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The next day I amused the townsfolk by jigging some aerobics to my mp3 player on the beach.