Once upon a December there were six gringos...

Preface 

Well after three weeks I think its time to look back on our mistake and the great memories we had in Puerto Lopez. On December 19th 2010 a group of six students from Kalamazoo College left Quito to go to Mantaraya Lodge which is located in Puerto Lopez, however we thought it was in Manta so I bought us bus tickets to go to Manta. The day before we left we figured out that it was actually in Puerto Lopez and this was where the story begins.





Here is a map of Ecuador and you can see Quito and then Manta on the coast.

Here you can see a close up of the coast and how far Manta is from

Puerto Lopez, which isn't that far (about an hour and a half

 away I would say, shorter if you would drive).



Chapter One: Guns and Robbers

Once upon a December six gringos were on thier way to the beach but because of mix up arrived in Manta where they tired to get bus tickets to thier final destination, however the ticket sales lady told them that they had to go a block down to the other bus terminal to buy tickets to go to Puerto Lopez. She told them the options were to either take a taxi or walk down. After talking to the group we decided that after a seven hour bus ride it would be silly to take a taxi to go down a block, afterall we could see the other station from where we were. So we decided to walk down. There we were about 100 feet from the terminal when a group of guys on motorcycles drove by. Next thing I know they circle around and a red motorcycle stops right in front of us and then another two from behind...and then he fumbles a few seconds trying to get something out from his pants, and when he finally gets the gun out my heart starts to race. I can't help but think this has got to be a joke, or a bad dream, but I know its real, its so freaking real that I am immobile. I couldn't move, but I can hear that the other guys are taking bags and demanding money and cell phones from my friends. Then he looks at me and demands that I give him something, so I hand over my ipod. And then they are off again, and there we are standing looking at them ride away with 5 bookbags, 5 ipods, 4 cellphones, money, clothes, laptops, etc. A man walks over to us, he like many others saw the whole thing happen, and tells us we should probably call the police and then one of the boys asks him to call because thier cellphones had been stolen. We walk over to the station and a very nice lady tells me not to worry, that she has called the police and within a few minutes they arrive.

Chapter Two: The Labryinth of Making a Police Report

Once the police arrived I let them know of our situation and get useful information to him, I figured there was hope that they could catch these guys becuase afterall it had only happened about four minutes after thier arrival. However, even they looked at me like I was crazy for giving him a description becuase there was no chance that they would find them. Reluctantly they spoke over the radio to alert other policemen about the robbery that had just occured. I then asked to borrow thier cell phone becuase the two cell phones that we had didn't have minutes, saldo, in order to call the US Embassy. Once I got someone on the phone I told them what happened, he then told me he wanted our names and as I began one of the police officers tells me to give him the cell phone back because I was gastando su saldo. So I tell the agent to call my cell phone becuase the policeman was getting mad that I was using up his minutes (I did not hear back from him until two hours later). The policemen then informed me that in order to make a police report we had to go to the police station, and I told them that was fine. They looked at each other and then told me that the police station didn't open up until 8h00 so if we still wanted to file the report we would have to wait until it opened. So we picked a spot inside the bus terminal and waited, and waited, and then started to contemplate whether we should go back to Quito or head for the beach and go to Puerto Lopez. Meanwhile I had texts so I texts friends to call our program director and ask her to call us. Once 8h00 came around we had finally heard from the embassy and program director and they all told us the same thing, "You should have been more careful, Manta is a very dangerous place" funny thing is that NOBODY had told us this when we told them we were going there. Okay granted we probably should have looked it up, but I figured we were only going to be there for maybe 30 minutes and therefore I didn't need to look this up. Plus, my host family would have told me to be careful, like they did when I went to Guayaquil or when I go out at night to clubs because these are places where most robberies happen, but never had I heard about Manta being a bad place. However, thorughout the trip whenever we told someone about our story they were either as surprised as we were, but most of them just told us that Manta is well known for being a bad place and that there are lots of murders that happen there every month.

When we got to the police station there was a big line for people to get in, then it got to a stand still. I went inside and asked where I could make a police report and was directed to a line inside the station. Well once we told them our story we were once again given a lecture about about dangerous Manta is and how we should never walk around with valuables, the policeman that directed me to this line thought I was the guide of the group and proceed to tell me I should have known better. After explaining that I was not in fact a guide, or an Eucadorian, he still somehow held me responsible. At this point I had become the guide/translator of the group and I had retold our story multiple times that by the time we got the guy who was going to write out our report I knew who lost what, and most of everyone's birth place (State inwhich we were born, and the city of some). Once that was finally done we were ready to keep on with our adventure, but then the man told us that since of us had thier debit card, copy of his passport and Ecuadorian ID stolen we had to go to ANOTHER police station to report that. They wrote down the address, we hailed two taxis and were on our way to another police station. Once we got to the address and asked around where the police station was we were informed that the police station that we were looking for had moved about a year ago. It's new location was about 10 blocks away. So we two more taxis and off we were to this new location that we were given. We found it and had to wait another 25 inutes before being attended, during which I had to run and make copies and then come back and then go between two people to get thier signature before we could leave. 

Chapter Three: False Advertisment

This hotel that we booked was pretty pricey but we wanted to stay in a nice and safe place during our break, especially because a lot of us were bringing valuables with, so when we checked in and foundout that there was no Wi-Fi you can only imagine how upset we were. Not only that, but for those that had thier laptops, iphone, and ipad because they thought they were going to be able to use the internet they had brought them with for no good reason, had we known there was no Wi-Fi then they wouldn't have brought their valuables with and had them stolen. We were also given the impression that we could walk to the beach but that was not true, in fact to get into town we had to call a motortaxi to take us into town. There was a pool with an amazing view, too bad that they were working on the pool when we were there so there were always workers there, and each day the water just got dirttier. Also, when you look at thier brochure or picutres online you see hammicks in every room, but we did not see one hammick while we were there. Well at least there was complimentary breakfast; some fruit, bread rolls, eggs (sunnyside up or scrambled) and really good fruit juice BUT little did we know that we got charged if we wanted more bread or if we wanted a refill. Game room, haha more like a storage area that we ended up using to play some BP. We did get rooms, and they were nice and spacious. The cleaning staff came everyday and did an amazing job fixing the room up and getting us new towels when asked for. The one TV in the hotel did have cabel or a dish, which meant we were able to see a few episodes of Glee, Teen Mom, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and some Christmas movies. 

Chapter Four: Tiki bar and Colombians

The next day (Dec. 21st) we went into town to get essentials for those that had everything stolen from  them, came back and chilled by the pool. It was quite relaxing and finally felt like a vacation. Later on we went to back into town for dinner, after which we decided to go to a tiki bar and get a few drinks before heading back to the hotel. And there we were when two males come over and ask to dance. I didn't really care, it seemed like it would be fun and the one I danced with was dancing all over the place that I couldn't help but laugh. However, they seemed to get the impression that my friend Nicole and I wanted to do this more, which we in fact did not. Then out of nowhere they move closer to where we were sitting and buy the males of the group a beer and thank them for letting them dance with us. Now I didn't really care about dancing a song with them, but umm why the guys got the beer and not me made me a tad confused. Anywho, we finished our drinks and went back to the hotel and hungout for awhile and then Nicole and I went to go watch some TV and then hit the bed.

The pool side view was pretty amazing.


We finally had time to relax.

When we woke up (Dec. 22nd) we went into to town to get on the internet and finally tell our parents back in the States about the stituartion that we had landed on and then bought tickets on Reina del Camino to go back to Quito on the morning of the 27th. Later on we went back to the tiki bar and enjoyed hearing a few Bob Marley songs while swinging on himmicks and drinking some margaritas.  

Chapter Five: Mirror, Mirror on The Wall Which is The Best Beach of Them All?

On our fourth day at the beach we decided to venture out and go to the best beach according to all the locals. Los Friles was a very beautiful beach and even though there wasn't a lot of sun we still had a great time there.

The boys trying to get Nicole :)



Our guide, Roberto, was a very nice man who had been called to pick us up the first time we went into town and gave us his number so that we could call him anytime we wanted to go somewhere. He advised us to go up trail once we arrived at this beach so Nicole and I decided to take his advise. The view once we got up there was pretty spectacular.

Yup this is where we were for a week :)

Chapter Six: Our Magic Carpet/Boat and Our Journey to La Isla de Plata

Everyone that we had talked to encouraged us to try and keep our morale high and enjoy our vacation, and we did try. We thought that it would be a great idea to go to this island that is known to have amazing  animals on it, mainly the blue-footed booby. So we packed out sun block, put on our bathing suits, and headed off to the island on our magic carpet, or in this case boat. However, two of the boys were feeling under the weather and so our great adventure started off with a little bit of bad luck. We tried to get the other two from having to pay for the trip seeing as they weren't coming anymore, but it was useless. Once we had breakfast we got into a van that took us down to the shore where we boarded a boat. It was a very nice day, and after about an hour we could see that we were almost there when ... dadadadumm...our boat stopped. Yes, the engine or something, broke down and so there we were stranded in the ocean until another boat came to rescue us.

Once we got on the rescue boat we proceeded to the island, and commenced our 2 and a half hour hike. It was so sunny that I could just feel myself getting red and gross, but seeing all the blue footed bobbies was so worth it.

 

Blue-footed Booby!

The babies only have white fur.

Facts

- The female is slightly bigger than the male

- The female also has a bigger pupil 

- Once the chicks hatch the parents take care of them until they are about three months old, by that time they are able to fend for themselves

- The female usually lays more than one egg because one of them usually dies while they are young

- Both female and male have blue feet but it takes about a year for them to get them

Our journey continued after with a small lunch on the boat and a little bit of snorkiling. I attempted to, but lets just say I started to feel under the weather myself and so I stayed on the boat while the two boys went about swimming with the fishes. No worries, I will get another chance when I go to the Galapagos.

Chapter Seven: Merry, Merry, Merry Christmas With A Few Cocktails

I knew that I was going to have a GREAT time, I mean I had to, it was Christmas afterall and I was at the beach! What better way to start to day with pancakes! But, yet again the Grinch stroke again by making our pancakes probably one of the worst I've hard in awhile. Did that bring us down? NO! Nicole and I had reservations in town to get massages so went went down. We went to a lady's house where she gave us each a massage. It was sorta painful, oily, and a tad akward when she had us turn around (back side down) and didn't give us towels to cover our upper body.

Once we cleaned up we went back to the beach where we were greeted by our canadian friends, sand, and the SUN!! Ahhh it was magical. We got beach chairs by out tiki bar, ordered some drinks, got into the water, got tanned and relaxed all day :)


Chapter Eight: Agua Blanca and Fritz the Whale

This was going to be our last day so Nicole and I decided to go check out this sulfuric lagun, that nobody knew where exactly it was coming from. Roberto was feeling a little chuchaqui so he asked his friend to take us around, which was very nice of him to do. The tour included a tour around the small museum, caminata, and then afterwords we went to this cliff where you could see all the National Park which was pretty cool. On our way back to the town our motortaxi guy asked/took us to see the skeleton of this dead whale named Fritz. All in all it was a nice way to end this memorable trip. 

This is what's left of Fritz.

Chapter Nine: Are We There Yet?

Even though we started off the trip on the a bad note, and even though things kept going wrong, we always tried to keep a positive atittude and a good sense of humor. However, we were ready to go back home to Quito. We had bought our tickets three days before that would take us to Quito. Well the night before my host brother, Jonathan, called me and told me that I might run into a problem trying to find tickets to come back. I told him not to worry becuase we had bought our tickets already. So after a wonderful time at the beach we were also looking forward to getting to Quito and enjoying the rest of our time in Ecuador with the rest of the group. We get there and our happily ever after gets a stab. Our bus company,Reina del camino, was shut down by President Correa after a bus from this company had gone off a cliff and killed 39 people and injured 32 (the bus was only suppose to have 40 people onboard). Here is a link to more information to this tragedy that occurred and this is still under investigation by the government: http://www.hoy.com.ec/noticias-ecuador/reina-del-camino-no-reinicia-sus-labores-453793.html

Well here we were, ready to leave and no bus to take us. Our sorta guide, Roberto, told us to get our money back so we went to the ticket booth onlly to find out it was close and that it had been since the accident and would not be reopened anytime soon. Long story short, found tickets to go on a bus to go to Quito, about 12 hours later we get to Quitumbre which is REALLY South of Quito and have to take a taxi to our homes. Yet, we made it all to our homes, many with just the clothes they were wearing, but safe, healthy and with lot of good and bad memories to share. 

...And we all lived happily ever afer.

Fin