Landys In Ecuador: Isla de la Plata

Puerto Lopez is more or less surrounded by a National Park called Machalilla -- one of the reasons we chose to go to Puerto Lopez is because the water is cleaner! Part of the park is an island about 20 miles off the coast called Isla de la Plata (Island of Silver, so called because there was a legend that Sir Francis Drake hid treasure there). The island is also called the "poor man's Galapagos" because some of the animals found on the Galapagos live there. Since we are not planning to go to the Galapagos this year, we thought we would take advantage of this opportunity.

We took a day trip to the island, which started with about an hour's boat ride through an amazingly calm Pacific.

There are giant green turtles that make their year-round home here

Emmett took this shot with his new Christmas camera

Fisherman feeding fish guts to the turtles so the would come to the surface for the gawking tourists (us)

There was a pod of dolphins in the bay

After the boat docked, we started a hike up to the top of the hill -- it was pretty short (maybe 15 minutes) but steep, and it felt long in the heat.

Up at the top of the hill were the nesting grounds of the blue-footed booby (which we first heard about in a children's book, and my kids have been kind of obsessed with seeing them) and the frigate bird.

Famous blue feet

The blue-footed booby is known for doing an elaborate high-kicking mating dance (which we actually got to see)

This is what their nest looks like -- apparently they poop in a circle?

A fuzzy white baby nestling under its mom (we got super close up to the birds -- they are very social and used to people -- though of course the moms do not want you close to their babies)

Two young ones, one still fuzzy, the other with more grown up feathers

(Emmet took these great shots -- turns out he is quite he photographer)

This is the frigate bird -- they are larger than gulls, but the same type of scavenger.

The males have a scarlet throat that they puff out during mating season

There were a gazillion frigate birds all over the sky

This is what they look like without the puffy throat

After the hike through the mating grounds, we walked back down the hill to the beach. By this time it was about 1pm, and we were all super hot and really hungry.

Annalise trying so hard to be patient, waiting for lunch

They fed us fruit and sandwiches on the boat, and then we went to a little reef to snorkel for about 45 minutes. The snorkeling fair, the equipment was not super clean -- but really, a bad day snorkeling is better than a good day doing lots of other things.

It was a wonderful day. The Galapagos is on our bucket list, maybe in a few years...