For the love of travel: Una mas noche por favor

So after trying to leave for the second time, we ended up being seduced by the sunshine into staying another night in Ayampe. Also, the lovely Marilyn from La Buena Vida offered to not only to buy our bus tickets for us but also take us into Puerto Lopez the next day to the cash machine, then drive us back to Salanga so we could go whale watching (again).

It looked like it was going to be a perfect day for me to learn to surf but unfortunately (I think Jimmy was probably more disappointed than me), the waves turned a bit poo so instead we just chilled on the beach, then went and enjoyed the best burger in town at Azucar Morena with Liza and our new English friend Adam. Jimmy was determined to do a thankyou card for the crew at La Buena so we spent the afternoon there drinking beers, chatting with Adam, uploading photos, drawing, sharing NZ music with the owners who love Fat Freddy's and enjoying the view of the birds diving for fish out to sea right in front of us.

Just a photo of some army guys casually taking photos of them pointing at some plumbing. The gun is an essential of course.

Five hours later Jimmy had finally finished his card and so we went up to La Buena to join Lisa's farewell dinner (she had been doing an internship there as part of her degree in hospitality). The boys headed out for beers and decided 10 big bots would be a good idea for about 4 of us that were left drinking so of course hilarity ensued after a game of yaniv where the losers had challenges. Once it was Jimmy, who had to do a shot of a local 38% liquor, and second time it was Liza who had to be Michael Jackson whilst dancing to Thriller and the others be her zombies. Worst.dancing.ever. But lots of laughs were had!

Next day it was our actual final goodbyes to Ayampe and off to try and spot some more whales. And whales we spotted. This time I have zero photographic evidence as I was even more excited this time with the whales actually doing full jumps out of the water rather than just emerging and slapping their tails now and then. I literally screamed like a little girl on multiple occasions. Africkenmazing. Once again, memories etched in my mind that I'll never forget. We finished off the dive with a snorkel but we had to get out after not long as there were a ton of teeny invisible jellyfish stinging us everywhere which was really annoying.

With the sun shining there were smiles all round as we disembarked our private boat tour (which only cost USD$25 each) and it was straight to their restaurant for a late lunch/early dinner. What an epic feast/feeding frenzy it was too. So much scallop and fish goodness... And to top it off we still had some sun left in the day to head down to the beach to watch the blue footed boobies have their own feeding frenzy in the shallows. It's an incredible sight seeing them all in their swarms that then all dive bomb into the water together at break neck speeds (sometimes literally!). And of course the sunset was top notch. Liza, Jimmy and I were pretty tempted to catch a cab back to Ayampe with Adam and ask for una mas noche por favor once more. But the promise of what Colombia has to offer us managed to drag us away, so off we set to our night bus headed to the city of Quito.