Puerto Lopez

The last two days we were in Ecuador were free days so we took a little road trip to another town on the coast, Puerto Lopez.  

We ate seafood at a little restaurant on the water. 

After lunch we went down to the ocean to meet one of Dr. Fellers patient's dad.  He is a fisherman and wanted to take us out on his boat as a thank you to the Fellers for operating on his son.  

We had no idea what to expect, but he took us out on his tiny little boat to a island a little ways out (pictured in the distance)

It was a rough little ride, but a lot of fun.  

After getting off the boat he asked us to go visit some kids who needed surgery. I talked about that visit in this post. It was a neat experience to get to make some house calls in this rural area.  

We spent the night at these really cool cottages overlooking the city of Puerto Lopez

They had this amazing infitinity pool overlooking the Pacific Ocean

The owners of the cabins made us an amazing dinner on the little porch

The next morning we woke up early to go whale watching.  The tour company told us they would provide transportation from our cabins to the boat.  I'll just say we had a good laugh when we walked outside and saw this truck.  

They said they provided transportation.....they never promised us we would have seats or a roof.:-) I actually thought it was a pretty fun ride down into the town.  

We got on this small boat with a few other people to spend the day out on the ocean.

We saw several whales and even watched them do some flips in the water.  It was amazing! They are such big and beautiful creatures.  

And then there was this moment.....

you know that moment when everyone else takes dramamine for sea sickness but you think you won't need it.  Take a very rough ocean+anchoring a boat for quite some to watch the whales+looking through a small hole on a camera to get just the right picture=one bad episode of sea sickness.  Unfortuantely I lost concentration on the whales and was much more focused on not losing my breakfast! 

We finally reached the island where we would be hiking.  I have never been more glad to get off a boat! 

We took a beautiful hike 

And saw lots of blue-footed boobys.

These are such interesting and beautiful birds. 

We walked down to a cliff overlooking the ocean. It reminded me a lot of the views we had in Cape Town.  

Beautiful aqua ocean

Obviously I had a lot of fun taking pictures! 

After a great hike we got back on the boat to head back to the mainland.  If you know me you know I LOVE boating.  It really is one of my favorite things.  But this boating experience was kind of rough.....or maybe VERY rough.  The swells were huge and the boat was small.  I had many moments when I really thought "we are going to tip over. I just know we are going to tip over....."  Maybe I was being a bit dramatic but once again I was incredibly thankful to get on dry land.....and that says a lot for this boat loving girl.  

I will say even with the big waves and sea sickness it was a great day and a really incredible experience to see such beatiful ares of God's creation.

We got back to our transportation and started the trip back to Crucita! 

Ha that really wasn't our mode of transportation.  I just really like the colors of it and do think it looks like a fun way to get around.  Too bad I didn't get to take a ride on it.  

It was a great couple days of sun, rest, and seeing new sights after a great week of spending time with 400 children!