After Congal we headed down the coast leaving the province of Esmeraldas and entering the province of Manabí. It was like traveling to another planet. The lush jungles turned to a drier, desert coastline filled with ceibas, Santos Palos, and cacti. Juan Carlos drove our ragtag group to the port city of Manta, which according to its many statues and fountains of Tuna and cans of tuna; it’s the tuna capital of the world. We didn’t spend much time there, just stayed in a hotel for a night to break up the long drive to Puerto Lopez. Other than seeing a psycadelic caterpillar train car at night and talking to fisherman at the fish market, there wasn’t much that we did. The fish market was huge and efficient. The unbelievable part of it was the amount and size of sharks that were landed. Their fins were immediately cut off and sold off to be shipped to Asia for sharp fin soup, a delicacy. It’s illegal to fish for sharks but it’s okay if they’re bycatch. Well, there was a lot of bycatch, and the fishers were super awkward when we asked to take pictures of them. In contrast in the fish market section they were proud to show us their Humboldtian treasures. It ranged from the biggest prawns I’ve ever seen to fillets of marlin bigger than my head. While wandering in and out of the various fish stalls, incoming tide and shipyard, the call of the sea was very apparent here. I could see the lure of fishing and just going out on sea in general, and this all gave me a perspective. We have always talked in environmental classes about bycatch and shark landings and how bad they are, but these weren’t the big, faceless industries that I imagined raping the seas; these were just guys with families. By now Andres, an administrator of GAIAS switched placed with our professor, Luis, who had to go back to Quito, and we added Peter to our group. Peter is an Ecuadorian who works for EquilibrioAzul which is NGO that directs marine research and conservation efforts. Our one night in Manta, some of us went to a bar with Peter and just discussed politics, environmentalism and the like. It was very interesting, both hearing other Americans’ views on the US political situation and his view on Ecuador’s current political leaders. It seems like he comparatively likes Correa, and I agree I think, it seems like Correa really cares about his people. He does seem a little loco though, hey, but sometimes you need a little loco-motion to get things done. After we had our visual fill of beached hammerheads and sandbar sharks we piled back on the bus and continued south to Puerto Lopez.
Puerto Lopez was……amazing! If I could only give one recommendation about mainland Ecuador it would be go to Puerto Lopez. It’s a small coastal town in Manabí where fishing has been center of life for quite awhile. It has gotten a tad bit touristy but certainly not as much as any beach town in the US, but more about that later.
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