¡que chévere!: the coast

Hello there! The class is back in Quito after a week and a half on the coast of Ecuador.
Not only did we do a pretty fabulous job of sunning ourselves (some to the point of sun burn and sun stroke...), but we did a lot of learning too! Don't worry Mom and Pop, I'm making the most of this trip!

We traveled to a handful of towns within the province of Manabí, which is north of Guayaquil and south of Esmeraldas. For the first few days, the entire class traveled together to the study sites to make general observations and brainstorm for projects. During the second part of the trip, we had the option to return to the sites to collect data and make more observations. We mostly visited rocky outcrops at low tide to observe intertidal ecology.
I somehow accumulated 6 projects over the week, so now I have a lot of work to do!

I took about 400 photos, and I picked some good ones to share with you, my faithful readers.
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Los Piqueros

La Hosteria Piqueros Patas Azules (Blue Footed Boobie Hostel) was our headquarters for the week. Here, we had access to a rocky outcrop at low tides to observe crabs, snails, sea stars, sea slugs, anemones, barnacles, etc.

Not a bad view...

one of our classrooms...

Limpets and their eggs

(the concentric slimy circles are the eggs)

Sea slug!

Gooseneck barnacles indicate the presence of rushing water

g h o s t

crab

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Puerto López Fish Market

I visited the fish market almost every morning with a bunch of other students and our professors (Kelly and Jaime). The market in Puerto Lopez is an artesinal market, and what shows up in the market is supposedly all incidental bycatch...though one day we counted over 100 juvenile sharks (mostly hammerheads) in the market.
A few years ago, the market was only held one day a week. Now, the market operates almost everyday, but Saturdays and Wednesdays are the busiest days. Over the past few years, the size of the fish brought to the market has diminished significantly, and some species of fish have even stopped appearing altogether.

Magnificent frigate birds try to steal fish out of the bucket, and brown pelicans standby in case something is dropped.

I studied the feeding behavior of frigate birds at the market with Amelia and Natasia. In a more natural setting, frigate birds tend to be solitary in feeding, but they become very opportunistic at the market when food is generally easy to catch. We observed several fights between birds in which the bird with the fish was chased a bullied by other birds until the bird threw up the fish for another bird to catch.

De-finning and gutting a marlin...I'll spare you the gutting photos

Maco shark

HUGE MARLIN=$1500 USD

Fisherman and his tuna

gutting tuna

camarones

shrimp

eel

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Machalilla National Park: Los Frailes

In this dry forest, all of the plants look dead and everything is a shade of brown. So there are no photos of that part... But the plants were all very interesting and of course demonstrated plant adaptations to low water supply (no leaves, hairy leaves, tough leaves, small leaves, waxy leaves etc.). Curiously enough we also saw some bromeliad epiphytes like the ones we saw at Hesperia, except these were more pathetic and brown...

a quick dip in the ocean

the most beautiful beach in Ecuador

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Puerto Cayo

I took no notable photos here. I did a really cool brittle star project here, but someone else has the photos, so I will try to get my hands on them...
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Montañita

This is the hippie/surf capital of Ecuador and is popular among backpackers. The beach used to have 5 shacks, now there are over 30 and the town is quite touristy. Closer to the town, sewage seeps into the beach sand and fertilizes it so that it turns green. Yummy...