#238. 11/12/04 Puerto Lopez

Next stop is 3 hours down the coast at Puerto Lopez: an interesting journey sharing the bus with sacks of maize and live chickens. Puerto Lopez is a sleepy, laid-back fishing and beach village. We're staying here because it's right next to a Machalilla National Park, which promises many more adventures! Our hotel is great. We staying in a thatched bamboo hut on stilts. There's a common outdoor kitchen and chill out space with plenty of hammocks about.

For dinner today we consumed a bucket of freshly assorted fish bits, although we couldn't manage most of the squid heads, which were fed to the restaurant's cat. In the evenings I laze in the hammock listing to the ocean, the crickets, the evening birds and the occasional waft of an unseasonal "jingle bells". There are beers in the fridge and the cats are friendly. It's the good life indeed, with nothing much to complain about apart from mild sunburn, mild jellyfish stings, morning cockerals and the fact that we have to change our traveller's cheques in a pharmacy charging an outragious commission.