Carnival final afternoon

Annalise spraying our neighbor, Sonja

Emmett just sprayed our neighbor, Ernesto, while Annalise was sprayed in the face

Annalise spraying Ernesto

Everyone gets wet 

mud puddles are another way to get someone wet

Lourdes retaliates on Annalise with a bucket of water

Horse race on the last day of Canival 

Emmett likes to dance 

and get down...

Everyone has fun at Carnival 

Carnival

Carnival is the celebration that precedes the Lenten season (40 days before Easter).    People party, toss water balloons and drench each other with buckets of water.      During the days leading to Carnival, everyone has license to drench anyone with water.    One afternoon I thought I would be kind and offered a water balloon to an elderly woman for "defensa" and she proceeded to break it on my back.  Most evenings Kate and I go for a walk on the main road that goes through town.  During one of our walks, passengers on a bus traveling about 35 mph threw bucket of water on us from out of the back exit door.    Unlike all the other town festivals that take place in the center of town very near our apartment, Carnival is celebrated by the river.   Thankfully, we had no idea how late the parties lasted during Carnival because the party was located about a mile from our apartment.   Carnival was lots of fun and drenching others was an opportunity to have fun with lots of our neighbors.

Annalise and Kate having dinner at our friend Yolanda's restaurant

One of many soccer games played during Carnival

Emmett and Annalise getting ready to squirt people with canisters of foam

mud puddles are convenient way ensure others get wet (and muddy)

the kiddie pool came in handy to drench friends

John played in a game and scored some goals

Lauro celebrating our arrival 

the calm before the storm.... 

Annalise attacking Lauro

Emmett floating down the rapids

twenty people (including Emmett, Annalise and John) and two strollers fit in the back of a pickup bed to travel to the next venue of Carnival 

 

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...

Emmett taking pictures

frigate birds