Monday 12 March 2012

Machalilla National Park - Los Frailes Beach

On our first day in Puerto Lopez, it was Valentines Day so we wanted to spend it on the beach!

As the national park was so close by, we thought it silly not to go and see at least some of it. We jumped on a local bus to the beach Los Frailes which was only about 20mins away.

The beach is actually quite a way from the main road, so Alice & I decided to go on the picturesque 2 hour nature walk to the beach through the national park, which takes you past various view points to see as much as we could.

We were walking for about 3 minutes before we realised we were getting completely eaten alive all over. We didn't have any repellent and were wearing bikinis and flip flops giving the bugs optimum coverage to bit. Not prepared for a nature walk at all!

We carried on spurred by the promises of nice views but after about 10 more minutes we came across a snake on the path! I didn't see it straight away and carried on walking making it go into its defensive position just before it goes for the bite. Luckily I saw it just in time, screamed and we both ran away in the other direction just as it was about to strike! It was only a baby but looked fierce and was obviously feeling threatened by us. Safe to say we sacked off the walk and went back to the road the hitchhike the rest of the way to the beach. Definitely wasn't our day to be at one with nature...

When we eventually arrived at the beach though, it was amazing and well worth it (well maybe not the almost snake bite!).

So we spent the day sunning ourselves, well until 3pm when a massive storm blew in and we quickly packed before heading back to Puerto Lopez so we didn't get caught in the rain.

We met back up with Chanelle (who had spent the day in Puerto Lopez) to have a couple of cartons of red wine!

xxx