Our Final Day in Ecuador - Trip to the Coast

About half of the Pennsylvania group flew out this morning for a 3 day visit to the Galapagos Islands. The Galapagos sit in the Pacific Ocean about 600 miles west of continental Ecuador.

The rest of us, who needed to be back at work, school, etc. and were unable to afford the additional time away from home, were originally scheduled to fly home today. However, American Airlines was not willing to honor our group rate on a Sunday. Therefore, we had a free day for sightseeing.

A day after our journey into the Andes Mountains, most of us decided to take a trip to coastal Ecuador. The Ecua-Andino tourism company (owned by Rotarian Victor Chiluiza who was the logistics coordinator for the entire mission) provided us with a small bus and tour guide Shirley.

Our 60 mile trip took us to Puerto El Morro, a small and humble fishing village. At the end of a pier, we adorned our lifevests and got into a small outboard-powered boat.



We navigated through a channel bordered by mangroves until we got to an area abounding with wild dolphins. We spent at least a half hour here watching the dolphins swim around and occasionally jump out of the water beside the boat.


We then journeyed 30 minutes out into the Bay of Guayaquil to Isla de los Pajaros (Island of the Birds). This island is home to 20,000 sea birds, mostly the Frigatebird. We disembarked our boat by using wooden planks spanning the muddy shore area and grabbing onto a mangrove to pull ourselves up to a trail.



The trail took us around shrimp ponds to the nesting area of the Frigatebirds. The Frigatebird is a large sea bird with a 3 or 4 foot wingspan. They have the largest wingspan to body weight ratio of any bird. The males have inflatable red-colored throat pouches that they inflate to attract females when mating.

Our walk took us right through the sites, smells, and sounds of 20,000 nesting birds. We were within "touching distance" as these large seabirds were taking off and flapping over our heads the entire time. It was a surreal experience. Fortunately, and amazingly, none of us were left adorned by any bird excrement.

On our way back to Puerto El Morro, we had a brief encounter with the dolphins again and then came upon a flock of pink herons.

Back in the bus, we traveled onto the beach town of Playas where we had a seafood lunch in a local open air eatery. We then spent a little time looking at the wares of local artisans along the beach.