Baños, Buses, and Boobies, Oh My!

So, we haven´t blogged for quite some time. Why you ask? Because we were in the middle of nowhere followed by a 5 day stint in the hospital. M is now alive and well. No worries. Let me back track...

BAÑOS

We finally left Quito 5 days later than planned because we love our neighbors a little too much. Seriously. We tried to wait for Tomas to walk, but that wasn´t happening so we finally had the dreaded tearful goodbye. We arrived in Baños 4 hours later. Yes, baños means bath, real creative for this town known for their natural hot springs. We spent a few days shmoozing around town, soaking in the (clean?) warm waters and riding mountain bikes. We engaged on a gorgeous bike ride from Baños to a town about 60km away called Puyo. Our aching asses only made it about 22km, but that was more than we could take. We saw nearly 15 waterfalls on the way, ending with the beautiful waterfall near Rio Verde before we called it quits. Apparently M isnt too keen on relaxation, so we cut the stay short to have more adventures and less relaxation. Which is where the bus rides began. Will post pictures at a later date.

BUSES

Hours on a bus? 15

Days until arrival in Puerto Lopez? 2

Number of buses? 4

Kilometers travelled? 200, yes about 120 miles in 15 hours

Number of motion sickness pills? Too many

Number of times we feared for our lives? Too many

Bus window decorations? Red fuzzy rear view mirrors decorated in Mickey Mouse stickers, giant, I repeat GIANT Jesus saying that we are all in his heart, isnt that nice of him?

Items for sale on the bus? Ice cream, bread, chicken, rice, salad, and beans in a little garbage pail container, gum, candy, pens that write sooo smoothly, in many colors, empanadas, mangoes, porn videos, watches, detox drinks, etc. You get the drift.

Strangest luggage? A man with a box of chickens, live.

Strangest luggage on top of the bus? 2 live sheep. Seriously.

BOOBIES! The blue footed kind that is...

We arrived, barely, in Puerto Lopez, a tiny town on the Pacific Coast, in the middle of nowhere. We found a great hostel called Hostal Itapoa and found ourselves in a cabaña equipped with a comfy bed, clean bathroom, hot water, mosquito nets, hammock on the porch, and the largest spiders I have ever seen. Ever. Puerto Lopez is a little dinky town with too good of a repuatation given by Lonely Planet. We hear Montañita, a little further south down the coast, is where it´s at. But Puerto Lopez is the take off point to explore Isla de la Plata which is exactly what we were there for. Known as the poor man´s Galapagos, we were in for quite the treat. We had a full day tour of the island which is an hour´s speed boat trip from the shore. The island is a low land dry forest, which basiclly means that for 10 months of the year it looks entirely dead. If it weren´t for the birds it would have been very ugly. But, every step we took, we had to avoid Blue Footed Boobies. Man, they are so cute. The island is uninhabited so the birds have not grown afraid of humans making them very accessible. The best part was that the birds made their nests in the middle of the path, not off the path, hidden in some brush, right smack in the center of the trails. We had to walk through the brush to avoid them because they started honking at us when we got too close. It was egg hatching time so we saw lots of Boobies sitting on eggs and lots of Boobie babies. Again, so cute! We hiked around the island for 4 hours as we encountered countless birds. It was incredible. We then had the chance to snorkel before we headed back to the main land. As we got back on the boat to prepare for snorkelling, we saw sea turtles swimming around the boat! It was a first for us and very exciting. We then got in the water and saw coral and beautifully colored fish. M quickly insisted on rushing back to the boat because she was finished. I followed because I was nervous to be alone. Once we got back on the boat M revealed she popped her head up while we were swimming and saw a big fin in the distance and was afraid it was a shark, hence the rush back to the boat. Turns out it was nothing but a sea lion! Very exciting wild life sightings!About 20 minutes after we got back to the hostel, M started feeling some crazy pain in her chest and that´s when the next 5 days in the hospital began. Thankfully M is fine now, and we will update with the story tomorrow.