Saturday, July 1, 2017: A few miles south of Salango, we arrive at our next destination. Viejamar is a cool little enclave of bamboo cottages, staffed mainly by "volunteers". The staff while we were there was mostly a group of young ladies from France and New Zealand - all of whom spoke English. They each had a duty schedule each day in exchange for free rooms. It is a very fun place to be!
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Along this stretch of the Pacific is a beautiful wide beach. A perfect spot to surf, or just relax. Here is the Viejamar entrance from the beachside.
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The sign says it all... we were there at the same time as a group of young men doing volunteer work in Quito who had come for a weekend at the beach, (one of whom was a young man from Dubuque, Iowa, who had never been in the ocean before); and as we were leaving later in the week, a very interesting young man from Sweden showed up, traveling the world by himself.
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Every beach here seems to have its own character - on this one, you can't help but notice all the driftwood that washes up on the beach - and also the most beautiful, colored stones, worn smooth by the surf similar to what we call "river rocks".
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Our little casita was the one closest to the ocean - from our little front porch we had a great view!
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A nice walk down the beach is a great place for fresh seafood - Jinmey's Restaurant. And yes, they had fresh camotillo that day - so a splurge was definitely called for!
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Camotillo seems to be a favorite fish of the Ecuadorians. My research says it is a deep water reef fish, and that might be the reason it is usually priced a few dollars higher than other fishes. Of course, the only way to eat camotillo is "entero", the whole fish!
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Yes, it is the annual whale watching season along the Pacific Coast, This time each year, the ballenas travel from Antarctica to breed and have their babies in the warmer waters off Equatorial Ecuador. And we finally got lucky!
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You must look close - the whales are a ways out in the sea - but you can definitely see the water spraying up from their mighty tails as they breach the surface.
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These photos were taken from the 2-story bamboo deck in front of our room, right at the entrance to the beach. We had been watching for whales since we arrived in June, but so far this has been our only sighting. They must have played out there for approximately 1/2 hour! What a show!
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