Ecuador: Boobies, festivals and volunteering!

“Do you know what the word “Boobie” means in English?” I asked Tito, our tour guide. “Yes”, he smiled back. “It’s a ‘pecho’ (breast),” I told him, feeling the need to explain it anyways. There was a reason for this outburst, although I do like just asking random questions unrelated to anything now and again and may ask that very same question to our next bus driver. On this occasion however, I was on an island off the coast of Ecuador called “Isla del Plata”, which is nicknamed the “Poor mans Galápagos” i.e. a place for people to go who don’t have the extra 2-3k that a trip to the “Rich mans Galápagos” would set you back. The island has a lot of these unusual birds called “Boobies”, unusual by name and by look, grey birds with big bright blue feet. I eyed one up and not being a bird lover thought, “I’d like to shoot one”. “I’d like to shoot one” I told Tito as I closed one eye and pointed a pretend pistol at the bird (the pistol was a long, old fashioned gun, the type that you might expect a flag with “Bang!” written on it to pop out when the trigger is pulled). Tito laughed and I laughed back but once again thought “I’d like to shoot one”.



Blue Boobies. Wouldn´t you like to shoot one?


The trip to the island was part of a full day tour that Julie, me and her orange raincoat were on. The main attraction of the day was whale watching, or so we thought. Really, the main attraction of the day was me and Julie. We were the only non Ecuadorians on the tour, which was made up of about ten people. We boarded our small boat in the morning, I looked out at the sea searching for whales, whilst the Ecuadorians sitting opposite me stared at us, took pictures of us, talked about us, pointed at us, especially at my freckles which they could not get their head around and gawped at with such an expression of confusion that they looked like they were constantly trying to remember a locker combination.

One of the girls, probably no more than eighteen turned to her friend, said something, they both erupted in laughter and then photographed us. “What the hell?!” I asked Julie, “Am I imagining this?” “No, it’s hilarious!” she answered, which of course it was. It pretty much continued like this for the rest of the day, I’d photograph a bird and the Ecuadorians would photograph me. I could hear them talking about me, they knew my name and dropped it regularly into conversations that they were having amongst themselves “Blah blah blah Niamh (they pronounced Niff)” laughter “Blah blah Niff,” laughter, followed by photo of Niff. They were good humored people and there is no room for paranoia if you are a white backpacker in South America, so I was happy to let them have their fun, even if it was at my expense. One of them ran up behind Julie when we were walking up a hill and said “Sing, Julie”, surprisingly Julie declined the order to burst into song then and there with a group of Ecuadorians and me staring at her.

Example of Niff "fitting in" in Ecuador.

The whale watching unfortunately was more like “whale glimpsing”, we literally only saw them for a few seconds, but what we did see was pretty amazing. Three massive whales flapped their tails beside us, but then disappeared as fast as they had appeared. We got back into Puerto Lopez that evening just in time for a whale fiesta (party), which happens once a year. It’s all about the fiesta’s in South America and it’s all about the whales in Puerto Lopez, a small, slow paced fishing village, littered with palm trees, hammocks and blue fishing boats along a stretch of the beach. The shores of Puerto Lopez are home to masses of Pelicans, which surprisingly I liked and didn’t want to shoot.

We gathered in the main street for the fiesta. Grandparents, parents, children and the occasional backpacker. We all stood on the unpaved, sandy road beside the beach, which makes up the “high street” in Puerto Lopez. Everyone looked pretty excited about the small parade which was making its way slowly towards us, very slowly. First to pass us were a group of men playing instruments such as trumpets, drums, symbols, all was going well, they didn’t sound too bad, but they finished their set, stopped playing and all just looked at one another, scratching their heads, confused and wondering what to do next. Then they shuffled out of the way as there were some monstrosities making their way up the street. I squinted to make out whether what I was looking at was a paper mache whale, shark or giant slug, the thing, which was on wheels was about to fall off its perch and crush the children in the crowd that were staring at it, was so badly made that it was almost unidentifiable as an animal. It had holes everywhere that looked like welts, enough to give the kids nightmares, good. After this passed us, two men dressed as giant blue footed Boobies made their way slowly down the street after the gigantic slug, they waddled from side to side as the crowd got overly excited and began a type of stampede towards them, the police had to usher everyone back and tell them to calm down. I suppose if you are the type of person that gets all worked up over seeing two tall, white backpackers then seeing two men dressed as birds is definitely more than you can take!




Paper mache, something? What is it?


We left the excitement and glitz of Puerto Lopez and headed for Quito (the capital) where we spent a pretty uneventful couple of nights (lies) and then got a night bus from there to yet another coastal town called Canoa. At 4am the driver stopped the bus and announced “I’ll be back at 6:30!” got off and locked us all inside. All the windows were locked too and it was hot hot hot not to mention unusual. True to his word, he reappeared at 6.30am and off we continued to our destination. Our arrival in Canoa also coinsided with a fiesta, all this fiesta action has been accidental, we can´t and don’t plan anything, ever, because we are shit.

We found a very basic hostel in Canoa and got a room with two beds adorned with Sponge Bob Square Pants sheets. “Isn’t this some sponge head guy?” Julie asked me pointing at her bed. “God, you really don’t know any celebrities, do you?” I asked her. The hostel was being run by a heavily pregnant woman whom we gave a shed load of our clothes to hand wash. We went out for dinner and when we came back were told that the woman had gone into labor. “I hope she finished our laundry first” I thought.



Sponge Bob, Julie and the orange raincoat.

We actually almost missed the fiesta in Canoa, somehow we didn’t see or hear the six hundred plus people that were gathered on the main street. I had just been complaining to Julie about how quiet the place was when two local men approached us and asked if we wanted to go to a party, “Okay, we’ll go for a look” we told them. Whilst following them down a dark street and once they were out of ear shot I said to Julie, “I can see the headlines now, ‘Two Irish backpackers TAKEN by South American men’”. “No”, she disagreed, “it’s much more like ‘Two Irish backpackers WENT with South American men.” Anyways, they were harmless and brought us to the fiesta which was only three blocks away.

The streets were divided by locals dressed all in white with white flags and others dressed in black with black flags, apparently to represent their mixed race culture, though I really don’t see evidence of much of a mix in terms of colour. The crowd was made up of people of all ages, sharing drinks and food, there was also a stage with music and of course lots and lots of dancing. Now and again there would be a chorus of locals shouting “Up the blacks!” which was shortly followed by “Up the whites!” from the other side. We quickly managed to ditch the two guys who had brought us to the fiesta and found a couple of free seats on the street in front of a semi bar type place where we sat and drank the local whiskey we’d bought off a man with no teeth. Not knowing that one beer bottle full of this stuff is meant for about five people, Julie and I got one each and knocked them back.

On the way home we stopped off at a street stall and sat down beside a large group of Ecuadorian policemen and ate dinner with them, of course following a brief dance with a few of them. One of the cops was being mean to us, he’d speak Spanish very quickly so we couldn’t understand and then all the other cops would laugh. “I understand everything you know!” I said to him, lying.

So, our time for fiestas has come to an end as we get ready to go to the organic farm for “volunteering", a word which indicates hard work, suffering and self sacrifice. It´s a word I never thought would be used in relation to me, ever. “Hello, I am a volunteer!” I will say all the time, people will think I am a wonderful, generous, well balanced person who gives up her free time to help others. But my follow up question of, “Do you know what the word “Boobie” means in English?” may however ruin that preconception.