After arriving in Montanita we found that it was as people had said, Mancora on crack. There were SO many people bustling around the streets and then the beach was jam packed with umbrellas. We decided that it wasn't for us and after some lunch at one of the local cafés, where we managed to run into a Dutch girl who was also heading to Ayampe, we headed back to the side of the road with her to wait for the bus.
Luckily the place that had been recommended for us to stay, Cabañas la Iguana, had availability for the three of us and it was a nice little haven in a lush tropical garden and only USD$30 for a double room with ensuite so pretty good value too. Unfortunately the sun had disappeared while still in Montanita so it wasn't exactly laying on the beach weather for me while Jim went off surfing on one of the local rental boards, made from balsa wood.
The next few days were spent doing not a whole lot due to the damp tropical weather continuing. A bit of yoga, a few beach runs, some reading, some researching, some games of cards (we learnt two new games yaniv and shithead) and of course eating and drinking was how we whiled away the days. Tough. There are actually a surprising amount of good food places in this tiny village so we managed to work our way through them meal by meal. More ceviche of course, burritos so big they were laughable and authentic italian pizza were definite highlights.
We also spent a lot more time with Liza, the Dutch girl, and her friend Titis who was already staying in town. He was staying at a nicer place, La Buena Vida, where we would go for a buffet breakfast every day. Titis was also learning to surf from the owner Keith, from the states, who used to work for Volcom and "absolutely rips" according to Jimmy so had managed to secure himself a sweet deal. The owners were really lovely and their kids quite a hoot. Especially their son who is obsessed with superheroes and did a sweet Iron Man rendition to us as Jimmy played him the soundtrack.
We had found some Americans that were keen to go diving that were staying at the same place as us so Marilyn organized for us to go on a tour to Isla de la Plata, the poor man's Galapagos, with a taxi pick up and drop off service too. This was more appealing to us than having to make our way to Puerto Lopez with our big bags and find a place to stay as well as try book in a dive for the next day so it meant being able to stay an extra few nights on Ayampe. What a terrible shame.
We were super excited for our dive as we happen to be here right in the middle of whale and mantaray season so our hopes of seeing one, if not both of those, were pretty high. I was pretty nervous about the whole diving side of things though as it has been 7 years since I had done my PADI with only one dive inbetween with dad, which hardly counted as it was only a few meters below the water at Goat Island and he set up all the gear for me. In preparation I did a refresher test online and watched a video so that at least helped to ease any anxieties I was having.
Our taxi dropped us into Explorar Diving in Puerto Lopez the next morning and we handed over the USD$120 each for our two dives, ready to show our PADI cards at any point. Apparently that's not how it's done here in Ecuador though, only having to initial a waiver form that declares we have our license. So if you were that way inclined, you could definitely dive without your PADI here. Obviously not advisable though!!
There were a total of about 10 of us and we sped out across the choppy sea holding our breaths that we would see some whales. About half way across to Isla de la Plata we spotted some spouts going off in the distance by some boats and so we were willing the captain to head that way. He kept going full steam ahead though so we figured they must be pretty confident that we would see more humpbacks later on. We reached Isla de la Plata after about 50 mins and I was feeling a little queasy but super amped. After some help with Jimmy getting myself set up I was all set to go and in we went to explore the wonders of the underwater world.
After submerging I felt pretty comfortable straight away which I was happy about. And even happier once we started seeing all that the dive site had to offer. Turtles, huuuuge sting rays, flashing octopuses, gigantic moray eels, scorpion fish, coral, and parrot fish, so basically the full cast of Finding Nemo. On the second dive we got told to listen out for the whales and sure enough, if you breathed niiice and slow and quietly you could hear a crazy deep groaning making its way through the ocean's sound waves. Now that was pretty damn cool, second to actually seeing them diving was at least hearing them! Hopefully we will get some of the underwater footage from the Colombian guy Sebastian who had a gopro, just to give you an idea of what it was like under there. Diving really is one of the coolest things I've ever done and I was so happy I'd finally had the chance to do it again. Even if we didn't get to see any mantarays. And there was still the hope of catching whales on our way back which would be a huge tick on my bucket list.
Sure enough, within about 15mins of heading back across to the main land, we came to a stop and for about the most amazing 15 minutes ever, we got to witness the beautiful humpback wales around our boat as they cruised up and down, flapping their tails about as we oooohhhed and aaaahhhed at their enormity and beauty. Again I was missing my DSLR but the images of those beautiful beings will forever be engrained in my memory. Plus I was too busy squealing like a little school girl to be worried about taking too many photos.
Look at that grin! Not to mention the mo...
All in all, a $120 very, very well spent! We were pretty tempted to just do it all over again the following day but with 4 weeks left and dwindling funds we figured we should just leave it at that.
Once we docked back at Puerto Lopez the Holland v Argentina game was still going so we raced to a beach bar to catch the end of the game, secretly cheering for our Dutch friends amongst all the South Americans. We were sad to see Holland lose, especially in a penalty shoot out so we knew our friends must be hurting, quickly headed back to Ayampe to go and commiserate with them over some beers and more enormous burritos.
This was to be our last night in Ayampe as we need to keep on moving north to get a decent amount of time in Colombia. But as I'm writing this we have already signed ourselves up for one more night as the sun is shining here finally, so instead of a day a travel, a day of lazing on the beach and maybe a surf lesson for me sounds much more appealing! Tomorrow we will surely drag ourselves away from the haven that is Ayampe.
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