Whales, Birds, and Models

On Saturday I went to a fishing village 2 hours north of Montanita and then took a 2 hour boat ride to the "Poor Man's Galapagos." The port that we launched from was in the heat of the business. The fisherman, after fishing from 6pm to 6am, returned with their nightly catch, dumped all of the fish onto the beach, and then cut it up to sell to locals. The attached picture doesn't even expain it all.

On the ride to and from the island, we saw whales. The first time we were unlucky because the whales we saw were only 14 meters long. They did jump completely out of the water less than 200 feet from the boat, so we got plenty of good views. On the way back, a pack of 6 whales decided to play with our boat. They got so close that we were forced to turn the engines off and wait so we wouldn't run them over. While these whales didn't jump out of the water, they were coming up for air less than 1 meter from the boat, and I could have jumped on one if I really wanted to!

When we got to the island, we took a guided hike around and saw a couple of different birds. One of the birds, the frigate bird, defies common sense. It lives on an island and will drown if its feathers get wet. The bird feeds exlusively on fish and must use clever and cruel ways to satisfy its hunger without touching the water. The bird plucks dead fish out of the water, snatches food from fishermen's ships, and best of all, steals food from other birds after they have eaten it. A frigate bird will find a bird that has just enjoyed a meal and, while in the air, beat him up until the bird pukes. The frigate bird gracefully picks out the bigger pieces of vomit as they are falling to the water.

Some birds, when they see a frigate about to kick its ass, fly into the water to avoid the whole scenario. This is a big mistake, as the bird cannot stay in the water forever. More frigates will come and circle the area until the bird in the water decides that he eventually has to fly home. When the time comes, he takes off, gets pummelled by the birds, pukes, and then returns to his normal business.

Besides their ruthless feeding habits, the frigate bird has an red pouch that he inflates for mating. It takes days to inflate this pouch, as he has to fill it with air and slowly stretch it like a balloon. See the attached picture-- there is one bird with a fully inflated pouch and one with a half inflated pouch. Also, look at the picture of the blue footed boobies (the birds with the blue feet)

On Sunday, I convinced 4 of my friends to rent cheap bikes and bike to a waterfall that none of us had been to. After an hour of biking, ditching our bikes, hiking for an hour and crossing about 15 rivers (or the same river 15 times), we made it to the waterfall. There was a professional model in the middle of a photo shoot (just the model and photographer), but they were nice enough to stop taking pictures long enough for us to swim and grab a photo. It will probably be the best photo of the trip-- the model jumped in the picture and the professional photographer set it up!