machalilla

Today I went with Marvin my friend from Germany, a girl who is here from Switzerland, her host sister, and her host father south to the Machalilla National Park. After picking me up about half an hour late (just on time for Ecuador), we made our way to Manta, and then took the Ruta del Sol south. This road basically follows the coastline, which results in some pretty gorgeous views. After a while, we stopped, at a beach named San Lorenzo, where we got out of the car and walked down the beach. San Lorenzo is gorgeous. There is a really small town there, but the beach was basically deserted the whole time. At one end of the beach, there is a large cliff, with caves and cracks that have been carved into them by the constant crashing of the waves. We explored the beach for a while, trying to coax the  crabs out of the cracks in the cliff, but eventually had to get back in the car and continue.

Ecuador is interesting in that you can look out the car window and see only dead-looking, dry, and brown plants, and then while you blink, they change to different sorts of plants, all of which are green and pretty. Unfortunately, most of our trip was full of the ugly brown sort of scenery.

We finally arrived at the Machalilla National Park a bit later. We did a sort of mini-tour through the archeological part of the park along with a trip through the bird-section of the park. After that, we went to a small pond full of black water. Apparently it is a sulfuric pond, and the mud and water are supposed to be good for your skin. It smelled so bad, but we decided to get in anyway, since the guide told us that the smell wouldn’t stick. After smearing mud all over our bodies and then rinsing it off, we discovered that the smell DOES in fact stick. We then walked back to our car and went straight to the beach, hoping that the salt water would get rid of the sulfur odor we were covered in. It didn’t quite get rid of it, but it did help a bit- we could now stand riding in a car full of sulfur-smelling people. While we were at the beach, a boat full of fish came in to unload, so we watched the battle between the fishermen and the birds.

After swimming for a while, we realized that we still hadn’t eaten, and it was 3 o’clock! So, we headed north to a beach named Puerto Cayo, where we ate lunch. After lunch, we decided to head home to Portoviejo. We stopped at a gas station to fill up, since we knew we wouldn’t be able to make it all the way back without getting gas, and found out that the gas station was out of gas. And, unlike Houston, there are not gas stations on every corner. We ended up having to drive about 20 miles to a different city to get gas, which meant we had to take a different road back to Portoviejo- one that was significantly uglier and in much worse shape.