Sept 12 Last day in Playas

abbi and i couldn’t have asked for a better day :)


we woke up this morning with high hopes of sitting on the beach for our last day but alas, the sun had different plans for us. it was very cloudy when we woke up and was the same after after breakfast. we sat on the patio with our coffees and tried to figure out how we would pass the time.

in a split second we decided we should catch a taxi to the next town called puerto el morro. abbi had heard of a little eco tourist place called los delphines earlier on her travels. she showed me a brochure that outlined a few different tour options.

we thought it would be nice if we invited carmen from upstairs with us since her plans from last night were a bust. while abbi did the dishes i ran upstairs and invited her to join us. i managed to invite her using all spanish and i was quite impressed with myself! she was excited when she accepted the offer and 1 hour later the three of us were in a taxi to el morro.


when we got to the port we were a little disappointed because they told us that they needed 8 people to have a tour of the mangroves in one of the boats. so we decided that we would wait to see if anyone else would come... no one came :( we were about to give up when one of the boat drivers approached us and offered us a deal on a private tour. how could we turn it down we had come all the way here.

the driver strapped us into our bulky life jackets and were on the water in no time. it did int take very long at all before we saw a few pods of dolphins. we followed them for an hour or so. they were much bigger than the dolphins I’ve seen in canada! carmen as well as our taxi driver. i forgot to mention that on the boat was abbi, myself, carmen and our taxi driver. carmen had asked him to come along for protection. whatever that means... im not sure what she though was gonna happen to us out there on the boat. but he got a free tour out of the deal... and so did carmen!

 abbi and i were really grateful that we got to share that experience with carmen. we've never heard her make so much noise. she's lived in playas for most of her life and never been on the dolphin trip. carmen sang and made dolphin noises and got really excited at all the wildlife we saw on the boat. she also sang along with the salsa music in the car all the way home. we were happy that we had made her day by inviting her along.

the driver dropped us all off at home at around 130 and get this.. he charged us extra for the time he'd spent with us on the boat! you'd think he would have been happy with the free dolphin tour but i guess not.
the ripping off of tourists routine is getting pretty old to me at this point in the trip.


anyways, abbi and i head to the local empanada restaurant for lunch and had the best ones of the trip so far.
we walked the beach for a while, then came home and had a nap.


as we were packing our bags and cleaning up the apartment, the company that was supposed to show up last night appeared at our door. it was havier and andreas, the son of carmen's friend and his cousin. they invited us upstairs to hang out for a while. we told them that abbi and i wanted to go for dinner at 7pm but we would join them for a short while.


a short while quickly turned into hours! we had a great time hanging out with them as they both speak some english and they could translate for for carmen. they talked a lot about the history of playas, guayaquil and ecuador in general. they boys were really impressed with abbi's wealth of knowledge that she learned in her classes earlier in her trip.

carmen played old classical spanish music for us while we all chatted. she seemed very excited to share it with us. her house is really cool. she has a million little trinkets that she has collected over the years. she showed us some gigantic oyster shells that she found in puerto lopez, i've never seen anything like them. they were incredibly heavy, one was purple and one was orange and both were beautiful. her house is all dark wood with lace curtains that blow in the cool breeze brought in by the ocean air.



 by 930, abbi and i were starving.i had accidentally asked the three what they thought about  president correa. bad mistake. we learned early in the trip that this topic always starts a heated conversation with any ecuadorian, so we had to change the subject as the argument was dragging on and we needed food pronto.

we hopped in the car and drove around for a bit before we found a place to eat. i decided that i should be brave on my last night and try the ceviche. it was pretty good, but way too much food for me because havier ordered me a whole other plate of food to eat afterwards. it was rice and shrimp and veggies AND FRIES.

holy god, i couldn’t finish!

they drove us back home and we went to bed after we'd decided on a pick up time in the morning.  havier and andreas will be driving abbi and i to guayaquil tomorrow, right to our hostel. this means we can leave playas early and have a whole day to spend in the big city. this will also save us some money which is always good at the end of the trip :)

... not related at all, but i lost a toe nail at the end of the night. normal vacation stuff for me. always something with my feet.

abbi and i are both getting excited to be at home. we've had an amazing time but we miss our family and friends (and devils) a lot!