Journals from Abroad
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Journal: Trevor Downey: Ecuador
July 11, 2007
 Atacames |
At work Monday, I didn't feel so well. The illness to which no foreigner possesses immunity had caught up to me. My daily diet of fresh fruit juices and hot soups could no longer preserve my health. The dramatic change in climate from the mountains of Quito to the beaches of Atacames did me in, but by no means tarnished the past weekend. After recouping from the restless six-hour bus trip through the night and around mountain after mountain to the coast, my IAESTE friends and I were ready.
Despite the cloudy seaside weather, hundreds of travelers and locals alike crowded the sandy Pacific coastline of northwestern Ecuador. Only a few hundred kilometers off the coast we stood on beckoned the Galapagos Islands. However, due to the hefty travel requirements - both of time and money - necessary to truly enjoy the famous islands, I figured chest-deep into the ocean was the closest we'd get at this point.
We never set foot on the Galapagos, but our whale hunt well off the coast revealed a bit of the Islands' magic.
The nine of us boarded our single-engine boat with our two guides - one principally entrusted with vessel navigation and the other, whale-spotting. They guaranteed a good show or they'd waive the $15 admission price. From the shore, this seemed like a sensible offer. But two hours later, drenched with salty water and shivering under sunless skies, most of my friends would have paid double for the fastest way back to warmth and dryness.
Persistent in the pursuit of the whales and his pay, the driver cut through wave after wave, in whichever direction the spotter could convince him to turn. Then we would stop, all eyes directed across the water's surface. The guide would gaze and gaze, and eventually, he'd just point in a new direction and away we'd set off.
This continued until finally, with the help of another Captain Ahab-esque boatman, we spotted our first spout of water. And then another. Soon we were close enough to count a group of five whales in all.
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The whales only exposed glimpses of their humped backs, and then plunged beneath the surf one by one, leaving us to wait for the next resurfacing. They never treated us to the spectacle of bounding from the water, but it wasn't necessary. The whales, likely between 15 and 18 meters, seemed so serene and disinterested in our presence. These waters were theirs and they would continue to make a home of them no matter what we did on the surface. Our proximity to "wild" animals of such size and notoriety, corralled by no manmade tanks nor fed by human hands, was remarkable. I found the sight of these grand creatures in their natural environment acting so casually to be invigorating. They were definitely much more at home in the open waters of the Pacific than I was, yet seeing them brought me a definite feeling of comfort in the midst of my discomforts.
