horses, turtle and jellyfish

 My friend Amy has her parents visiting her at the moment. (Ecuador has been full of British parents!) Amy invited me to join her and her parents for a trip away to Purto Lopez and we left early Tuesday morning. On Wednesday Amy and I went horse riding!!! Very scarey (my first time) especially when the man stopped leading my horse and left me alone. How on earth does one brake or steer the thing?! No helmets or anything namby_pamby like that so falling and being seriously injured was quite a concern. We just about managed to survive the experience though ;) Riding along the beach was lovely but my our pleasure was somewhat marred by the agony of riding on a saddle for the first time. Was an interesting afternoon but highly painful! Sitting hasn´t been the same ever since!

  Yesterday we did a day trip to the Isla de Plata (Island of Silver.) Was  a wonderful day. About an hour and a half boat trip to the island.

There we went on a 2 hour walk to see Frigate birds and Blue footed Boobies. Quick pause for all sorts of "I came to Ecuador and saw Boobies& I love boobie! jokes. We saw LOADS of birds and really close up too!

Was fantastic! The island itself is in Winter mode which means no rain. Everything is dry and dead looking. All the trees and bushes are without leaves, the ground is dusty and cracked. The bareness of a European Winter but hot&dry-weird. The Boobies nest on the ground and are very relaxed about visitors. They would nest in the middle of a pathway and we would have to edge nervously past them (they have long and vicious looking beaks!) They´ve just had their nesting season so we saw dozens of little ugly newly hatched chicks. Repulsive but gorgeously cute too. The older chicks were big and covered in thick white fluff making them look like cuddly soft toys (the guides description!)

   After the walk we went back to the boat. A couple on the boat threw their food left overs into the sea. This is disgusting and really annoyed me, I was quietly irritated until I noticed the food attracted turtles! Suddenly we were surrounded by beautiful turtles. My first time of seeing them out in the wild, it was lovely. After this we went snorkelling.

Anyone been snorkelling ? Is it me or did it take you ages to get your breathing right? I know breathing through your mouth sounds easy enough but I swallowed half the ocean before I finally got it right!

   Oh wow, it was stunning!!!! We saw blue&silver fish and loads of Angel type fish. Black with orange stripes and blue tails.

Also some coral. It wasn´t coloured which surprised me but the textures were fascinating. One down side though, there were flocks/herds/crowds of minute jellyfish, each one was the size of a bread crumb but they stung us. Didn´t half hurt, each sting was like being jabbed by a needle. I´ve still got marks on my arms!