Hosteria Mandala and Puerto Lopez

I headed out of Guayaquil early Tuesday morning taking an 8:00 a.m. bus, Jipijopa Bus line, pronounced Hippihopa, love the name had to mention it, to Puerto Lopez and Hosteria Mandala where I had booked a couple nights stay. It took about 4.5 hours to get there and turned out to be every bit as hot and humid as Guayaquil. The scenery en route was mostly flat lands, lots of small towns, pineapple, rice fields and coconuts trees and lovely tall bambo stands. A lot of the housing built up on stilts, is wood framed, has palm front roofs and is clad in bamboo. The last half hour is along the Pacific coastline, mile after mile of light sand beach, so beautiful. The hosteria looks just like the pictures on the website, very nice and the location right on the ocean gives it the benefit of the ocean breezes that help a little with the cloying heat and humidity. I stayed in the Pelican room.

The hosteria staff were very friendly, the food good, my room nicely decorated and you just cannot beat the location. Some of the other guests there at the same time were there to surf, I spent some time after arriving sitting under the shade of a beach palapa watching the surfers and taking in the beauty of the ocean and beach areas.

Puerto Lopez, a small fishing village, is a little ramshackle but has despite that it does have a certain charm, I liked it. Best thing about it though is it's proximity to Parque National Machilla and Isla de la Plata and the humpback whales that come to mate mid June leaving again by mid October, otherwise I do not think it would get much company. The whales migrate and are now in Patagonia feeding so I did not get to see them. The Parque is Ecuador's only coastal national park. It preserves a small part of Ecuador's coastal habitats which I am told are rapidly disappearing throughout most of South and Central American Pacific coasts. It protects 50km of beach, 40,000 hectares of ocean and 20,000 hectares of dry and cloud forests. Isla de la Plata is part of the park and is the most important of the offshore islands. More about Isla de la Plata in the next post.