I ended up spending more or less 2 weeks in Puerto Lopez on the coast. (8.12-21.12)

It's a fishing town and with a pretty stretch of beach and fishing boats in the bay. Famous for whale watching, unfortunately I wasn't there at the right time for that but it also meant it wasn't too busy. I arrived with a plan of spending a week at the beach but as we know plans change! Originally I was going to spend a few nights in Puerto Lopez then go north up to Canoa. But I decided I liked Puerto Lopez so would stay where I was! Then while I was there my Mum decided that instead of coming to join me in Peru she would like to come to Ecuador so we got flights booked (very exciting!) and since I would be meeting her in Quito after Christmas I decided to spend a bit more time at the beach!

Ok, I could have been more productive, I could have done more travelling but actually I really enjoyed the time relaxing at the beach! My days more or less followed the same routine of sleeping late, eating, beach, reading, eating, sleeping :-)

I was lucky with the weather most days being hot and sunny. A few were overcast, my first and last days, but even then it still wasn't cold! Hard to believe it was December and Christmas was approaching, didn't feel very Christmassy at all at the beach, though I discovered that the supermarket had Christmas stuff on sale, Christmas decorations up and Christmas songs playing! Had lots of lovely fish and prawns whilst here and became a regular at a couple of restaurants, including a really good Colombian café and at the café bar I always went to on the beach.

A few variations on my routine in Puerto Lopez!

-On the day I arrived there was a fiesta happening in Puerto Lopez- at about 10.30 I went with a French guy from my hostal who had arrived on the same bus to see what was going on. There was a big market and lots of people around. We then went to an open air type of disco- there was live music, playing salsa songs so we did a little salsa dancing (in my case of- kind of salsa dancing!) and drank some beer. It was obviously a really popular fiesta and there were lots of people salsa dancing and drinking beer. When we got back at about midnight the hostal was all locked up, we didn't know how to get in, in the end he scaled the wall to try and let me in but couldn't! I got let in in the end and turned out there is a bell for if you come back later, but not next to the door where you might expect it!

-Did a trip to "Isla de la Plata", sometimes called "The Poor Man's Galapagos". It did remind me a bit of some of the islands I had seen in the Galapagos. On the island you can see a few different types of birds- we saw frigate birds and blue footed boobies. There were lots of them including chicks and it was good to see them as in the Galapagos I had only seen one and from a distance. The chicks were in different stages of size and development, but many had fluff instead of feathers. Also their feet are not yet blue, that happens later. After a walk on the island we had lunch on the boat then saw some sea turtles- of course as soon as everyone went in the water to snorkel they disappeared but it was good to have seen them from the boat. We also saw dolphins on our way to the island, which was great- I love seeing dolphins!

-Had an afternoon & eve drinking cocktails on the beach one day with an American couple I had chatted to, as they always went to the same bar on the beach too! They invited me to join them one day and I ended up at the beach from 1pm 'til 11pm- it was good fun and we had a good laugh!

All in all a very relaxing couple of weeks :-) And yes, I know how very lucky I am! :-)