We searched and searched, going from one place where they'd say, "Go there," and we'd go and then the other place would say, "Go there." Over and over. Finally, we found a guy who told us that we only could buy 1 year's worth of insurance during the weekend. It would cost $40 instead of $8. We decided, using the advice of a police officer, just to wait on getting insurance until Monday and if we got stopped we could just explain what happened.
Here they use bamboo for all sorts of construction. They are using these bamboo poles for holding up a poured concrete floor!
Little stores line the little towns along the highway.
Southern Ecuador is FILLED with banana fields. The labor conditions are terrible, the pay miserable, and the mono-culture requires frequent pesticide spraying...needless to say, our cheap bananas come at a giant social cost. But bananas are sooo tasty. Aaaahhhh!
They bag the banana bunches and separate them with some plastic disks.
Here's an unbagged banana bunch with it's giant flower!
We headed west, wanting to spend time on Ecuador's beautiful coast. Along the way we stopped at a roadside cafe to try some humas, or humitas, which are like tamales filled with cheese. We also got grilled chicken and plantains. Delicious. The kids were also relieved to find that you could find delicious Inca Cola in Ecuador. I liked how the ladies who worked in the stand, and the 20 billion others that lined the highway, would wave you in as you drove by.
We drove on and found a little side road in the National park to camp at. It was chill and we fell asleep easily.
The next morning we headed into Puerto López to find out about going to Isla de la Plata, where you can see some Boobies. We parked at the beachfront and immediately we had folks trying to sell us tours. You could hear them hollering at each other that they were first and that we were theirs, etc. I decided to ignore them all and make pancakes. We weren't sure if it was Father's Day, so we figured we'd better celebrate it anyways. While the pancakes were cooking, Ben and the kids went out looking for a tour office and I had a chance to be alone (except for the vulture like tour sellers who were hovering like vultures) and read a little. Ben discovered two things: 1. The tours for today were booked and 2. It was not Father's Day. We ate our breakfast and decided today would be a beach day at Los Frailes, a beach in the national park. We got lucky and the tour operator turned out to be a Chilean and said we could camp at his land on the beach and use his snorkel gear--score!
Wells was one happy dude playing in the water.
We snacked on passion fruit.
Sour!
The wind was blowing a bit, and there was a super fine dust of sand blowing around.
Lobster! I think it was dead.
Dylan got a cool new hat.
We ate some Rambutan...yum.
There were some young ladies (2 from Spain and 1 from Argentina) who were hitchhiking to and from the beach. We gave them a ride and Dylan and Wells had fun chatting it up with them. The Argentinian was stoked to find that we had a bunch of mate and a mate cup, bombilla and hot water. She had been travelling for a few months without mate and did not hesitate to accept some! As we knew from our experience in Argentina...they sure love their mate.
After the beach, we headed "home" and Dylan cooked dinner while I started washing some laundry. It's hard work, but we needed to wash away some of the sick that we'd been experiencing lately. I won't elaborate.
The land we were camping on must have been intended to be a something fancy once upon a time. The Chilean was using it for storage for his tour operation.
Wells is a master at dishwashing!
Now, I'm a bit of a freak about sunscreen and I always grill the family about using it. I don't know what happened, but I must have had an ADD episode and only suncreened half of my body. My stomach and right leg got so burnt! Crazy. I haven't had a sunburn in ages...they hurt!
Tired from our day in the sun and wind, and feeling still a little sick, we went to bed early so we could be well rested for the next day's island adventure.
