Day 15 - South Plaza Island/Punta Carrion

Today we took a one hour boat ride to South Plaza Island. This island is small in size, but big on flora and fauna. We were greeted by sea lions sunning themselves on the rocks as we approached.

Boat ride to South Plaza island

Sea Lion on the rocks of South Plaza Island

The most notable thing is the rich ground cover throughout the island. The Sesuvium plant is a ground cover that changes its leves to bright red, orange and yellow colors during the dry season. It is just like being back in Michigan in the fall!

Sevuvium covering the ground in full color!

There were also prickly pear cacti everywhere. In 1981, rats infested the island and ate the roots of the prickly pear cacti and killed most of them. The rats have since been eradicated and new cacti have been planted.

Prickly pear cactus planted.

Iguanas could be found everywhere. They can be very territorial as we had witnessed one chasing another out of his “area”.

One of many iguanas not the island.

We had lunch on the boat, then motored onto Punta Carrion. Here we had the option to deep water snorkle (which means we entered the water from the zodiac as opposed to the beach snorkle we did yesterday. There was a small cove where the waters were calm and you could see many fish including white tipped sharks.

An early return to the hotel gave us an opportunity to explore the grounds of the hotel and just relax. The mist and clouds that covered the highlands where the hotel is located finally cleared a bit today. We finally got a glimpse of our view from our villa.

For dinner tonight, we went to a restaraunt located in a lava tube called the Lava Cafe. We were served a five course meal of Ecuadorian foods (locally sourced) paired with Ecuadorian wine. The wines we had were from a winery called Armenia, which is Spanish for “harmony”. The food was delishous and paired very well with the wines. It was a great experience to dine in a cave and have such good food!

Dinner setting in the Lava Cafe

Chefs at work in the Lava cafe

Ecuadorian potato soup

Ecuadorian Wine with dinner.

After lunch aboard the Santa Fe, we cruise to Punta Carrion, where we have the opportunity to snorkel in the calm waters of a shallow cove teeming with puffers, yellow-tailed surgeonfish, damselfish, angelfish, and parrotfish. White-tipped sharks and a variety of rays may also join the throng of sea life here in the cove.

Following our excursion, we again return to the comfort of our beautiful hotel, where we have time to relax before dinner together tonight.