A Whale of a Time in the Poor Man´s Galapagos

Since I arrived in Ecuador I´ve had a touch of the green-eyed monster. Everywhere I go there are backpackers as scruffy as I jumping on planes to Ecuador´s crown jewel; The Galapagos Islands. Whereas on the mainland $1000 can easily last you over a month, on the Galapagos Islands it might last you a week. Clearly for me Lonesome George and his compatriots were off limits.

However Ecuador does provide for the cash strapped backpacker: one tiny island nicknamed, as so many islands on South America´s Pacific coast are, ´The Poor Man´s Galapagos´. However what Isla del Plata has over other contenders for this second rate title, and even over the Galapagos itself, is whales. Massive, jumping, Humpback whales.

Pelicans at the ready.

I had been going to miss out Ecuador´s coastline completely but then I heard that July/August were prime whale spotting months with whale sightings all but guaranteed. I fled the delights of the Andes and jumped on a couple of buses (one of which decided to play Predator vs. Alien at 1am) down to Puerto Lopez. That evening a tour was swiftly arranged and the next morning a very excited me sped down to the beach to catch my boat. In Puerto Lopez there is no harbour, or even a dock. Instead there is an end of the beach were boats attempt to come in as possible to the shore and passengers wade through oily waters to reach their boats. Boats for dragging gringos out to sea were far outnumbered by fishing boats coming in with the mornings catch. As we waited for our boat we watched the hordes of Pelicans dive bombing weary fisherman as they hoisted crates of eels on to the beach and laid out their fishy wares.

The journey out to sea was uneventful save for a Spanish man continually vomiting. I, unusually, was spared this fate but perhaps only because I was so busy looking for whales. Eventually we heard and saw an enormous splash. It must have been a whale! Quickly a few of us scrambled up a rickety ladder, circumnavigating the pile of vomit, for unimpeded views of the whales. At first we would just see three fins breaks the water and see what looked like massive dolphins diving deep with a farewell flip of the tail.

The best shot I got.

And then, it was impossible to predict where, a whale would erupt out of the water, arching its back in an impressive display for our awe struck boat. After a while it seemed as if the whales were competing with each whale jumping further out of the water and closer to the boat ´til they couldn´t have been more than 20m away. I tried initially to get that money shot and almost succeeded until I realise that these beautiful creatures were better appreciated with my own tow eyes and not through the lens of a camera.

I see Boobies!

The highlight of the day behind us we headed to the island itself in search of the Galapagos's most famous bird, the Blue-Footed Boobie. To my delight I discovered that whilst the female boobie (stop sniggering) quacks the male makes a whistling/hissing sound exactly like the sound lecherous Latino men make to intimidate blonde gringas. We also saw the comical Red Frigate Bird the male of which has an enormous wobbly red breast which he waggles at the other birds in some sort of display of macho pride. The baby of this species are sometimes called Teddy Birds because their down is so fluffy that they actually appear bigger than the adults!

A few more birds later (Golden Albatrosses and Red-Footed Boobies) we headed back to the boat and wearily to shore. The waves were enormous and it felt at times like we were on a roller coaster. Sea sickness began to set so I though I´d prove my claim that I can sleep literally anywhere. I dozed bolt upright whilst everyone turned green around me and was non too pleased when our guide woke me up to check if I was okay! However soon the shore was in sight and I was quickly cheered by the thought of the unbelievably fresh plate of calamari that awaited me.