La Ruta del Sol

After our adventures in the Galapagos, we worked our way up to my site by traveling along the Ruta del Sol, which lines the Ecuadorian coast. We spent time in several different beach towns. I was slowly letting Dan adjust to the "real" Ecuadorian lifestyle vs. the fancy full service Galapagos cruise lifestyle that he had gotten use to.
Dan and I's sand sea turle that lives in Los Frailes beaches

Our ecologically friendly hotel called Alandaluz...great place and highly recommend.We had a private beach in front of Alandaluz...so peaceful

We even found a random baby sea turtle that had washed up onto the beach!

We decided to put him back on track.
(When I got back to my host family's house to share my travel stories, they asked me why I didn't bring the turtle "home." I began to laugh at the idea of traveling with a little sea turtle and then looked back at my host families faces and began to realize that I don't think they were joking...a little strange.)

Lots of little sea creatures on the beach

Fish market days are the best time to visit the fish ports...white-tip sharks, hammer heads and sword fish just to name a few.

All the birds know where to hang out if they want their meals served on a platter...poor fisherman would be carrying heavy buckets of fish on their shoulders as birds would be stealing any fish they could quickly snatch up.Venturing out to Isla de la Plata
Isla de la Plata is full of boobies

It was breading season, so we got to see hundreds of baby Blue Footed Boobies

Los Frailes....pictures don't do justice, but these beaches are considered some of the best on the whole pacific coastline.

We ate mangos for lunch, but I sadly dropped mine in the sand.
We took a motor-taxi to Los FrailesAs you can see from the line on my forehead, the motor-taxis are a fun but very dirty form of transportation.

This Christmas season was spent with a very different backdrop than I am use to. The next post will have pictures of Dan and I's Christmas in my site.

I would like to take this time to say thank you for all my warm emails and Christmas cards. Thank you for thinking of me and for showing your support. I can't begin to tell you how much I missed spending the holidays with family and friends.
...and many blessings to you all for the new year!

(To be continued...)