Isla de la Plata - a poor man's Galapagos

Just off the coast of Puerto Lopez, Ecuador is the island preserve of Isla de la Plata.  A national park sometimes referred to as "the poor man's Galapagos), it's the nesting place of several different kinds of boobies, frigate birds, tropical birds, sea lions and a variety of other sea life. We took the hour long boat ride over, stopping to watch a pod of whales on the way.  This family of four followed along with us for a while.

Once on the island, we had a choice of several hiking trails with a guide who was there to point out the wildlife and to ensure that no-one interfered with the environment.  As we've said before, Ecuadorians are very serious about protecting their environment.  One of the trails was closed because some condors had decided to build a nest in the middle of it and they were waiting for them to hatch.  Anyway, after a steep climb of around 200 steps built from rocks, bamboo and rope bridges and what basically amounted to wooden ladders, we realized what poor shape we were in and elected to do one of the shorter trails.

One of the highlights was watching a pair of boobies doing their mating dance. They circle each other with the male doing a high-stepping goosestep while whistling at the female, who urges him on with squawking sounds until he gets close enough to touch bills.  This picture shows them at the end of their dance, when they stopped to look at us as if to say "Can we have a little privacy now please".

Standing on the top of a high cliff, we watched these beautiful cliff birds, which our guide simply called "tropical birds".  They swoop high above the break, and then gracefully land on the cliff side clinging to the rock with their wings out and their meter long tail feathers spread out behind. They nest in little crevices in the rock. Facing extremely high winds and craggy, open rock faces, it's amazing they manage to procreate at all, let alone accomplishing it while looking so graceful and majestic.

A few hours hiking the island, then back to the boat for lunch, a bit of snorkeling to observe the colorful fish surrounding the island, followed by a very fast and bumpy ride skimming the tops of the waves all the way back to the mainland.  All in all, a wonderful but exhausting day.