Last week we rented a car from CuencaCarShare and drove to Puerto López, a small fishing village on the coast of Ecuador, with two friends.  We stayed at Hostería Mandala, just as we did on our first trip to this area in 2012. They have added some new deluxe suites, which we stayed in.  The Colibrí suite was quiet, spacious, comfortable and came with a fridge.

As we approached Puerto López, the cloud cover became pretty thick, and we figured there would be no sunset. At the beach, we realized that the clouds didn’t quite reach the horizon, so we grabbed our cameras and rushed to find something interesting for the foreground.  There was only about a 5 minute window when the sun dropped out of clouds before it went below the horizon, during which time we got the above images.  Good thing too, because the next few days became solid overcast by about 3PM each day, and we never again saw any hint of another sunset.

This is peak whale watching season along the coast of Ecuador, so we took a boat trip along with about 15 passengers, and saw several whales surface, and two that breached.

Our boat tour also included a stop at Isla de la Plata, the island off the coast commonly referred to as “The Poor Man’s Galapagos,” because it is so close and inexpensive to reach.  If you enjoy wildlife up-close, you can’t pass up a chance to visit here.  The island teams with Blue Footed Boobies.  At this time of year, the eggs are hatching, and we saw dozens of birds, both male and female, trade off sitting on the eggs, and many others with their newly hatched chicks.

The other predominant species on the island is the Galapagos Frigatebird, with wingspans of 7’+.  We had hoped for some good images with the males puffing out their large red pouches, used to attract a mate.  Though there were a few, they tended to be in the midst of heavily branched bushes. The mating season began a couple of months earlier, when the frigates were more active.