Megan, Liz, and me pre-boat ride; you can see our fancy-schmancy boat behind us!

After about 20 minutes, we arrived in Atacames, a larger beach town. Our driver told us that we just had to cross a bridge, take a few turns, and we’d be at the beach. Sure enough, after a short walk, we came to a crowded beach. It reminded me of the beach in Rosarito in a lot of ways because there were tons of people and a large market selling all kinds of trinkets.


We were hoping to go on a whale-watching tour, and the moment we stepped onto the beach, a boat owner approached us, offering to take us to try and see whales and then go to la Isla de Pajaros (Bird Island) to see birds for $10 a person. At first he said we wouldn’t have to pay if we didn’t see birds, but we really wanted to see whales, so then he agreed that we wouldn’t have to pay if we didn’t see whales. It sounded like a good deal, and we knew we had to get going before the wind and waves picked up too much, so we agreed.

I thought there would be other customers as well, but it was just Megan, Liz, Liz’s parents, and me who buckled on large life-jackets and piled into a bright blue motor boat with the guide and his assistant.


The boat was in…interesting…condition. Part of the seat in front of me broke off as we sped through the ocean, and it was a very bumpy and fast ride and AWESOME! As we got further out into the ocean, the clouds cleared and there was a nice breeze. Well, there was a nice hurricane style wind I should say, thanks to the speedy boat.


Our guide’s assistant acted as our GPS, standing on the bow and occassionly pointing directions or yelling things. I have no idea how our guide could understand him since the engine was so freaking loud, but eventually we came upon a group of about 3 other small boats. We looked to where all their passengers were staring, and there was a HUGE whale with her calf!

We stayed for about 20 minutes, just watching the whale and her calf play, and they put on a pretty good show. Our guide joked with us that we just didn’t want to hear BOOM BOOM BOOM underneath our boat. Pretty much the whales could have lifted us out of the water as if we were a toy ship. Fortunately, they decided against doing that, and I’m still here to write this.

Hola! One of our whale friends waving to us

After watching the whales, we headed over to la Isla de las Pajaros, which if you ask me, is a misnomer and should be called Bird Rock.

Bird Island, which in my opinion should be Bird Rock, but whatever

The namer of the island, or rock, did hit the bird part on the head. There were birds all over the place, and it’s pretty amazing that none of us got pooped on. Most of the birds were Blue-footed Boobies (it’s ok, you can laugh at the name. I did.) and indeed, that had BRIGHT blue feet.