Whale Watching in Mancora Day 1

August 23rd 2015

All through my early months in South America I’d been chasing whales always arriving just a little too late, on the pacific coast of Colombia I missed them by a few days, the Ecuadorian coast I missed them by a few weeks, And In Chiloe, Chile I again missed them by a matter of days. This time I’ve decided I’m not going to miss them, but let’s rewind.

My initial plan is to come to Ecuador with Rob and Bethan so that has me climbing aboard a Superciva bus leaving from Chiclayo bound for Guayaquil (26 USD) where we’ll then head to Puerto Lopez to go watch the humpbacks frolic in the Pacific.

All goes well and the bus is comfy pulling up to the border around 1 am. I get stamped out of Peru and then lineup to get stamped into Ecuador. The immigration officer asks me how long I’m planning to spend and I answer ten days. He shakes his head and tells me I only have one day left. Basically as a Canadian you’re allowed 90 days a year in Ecuador, though the web could be clearer about this. Still i thought that it would be 90 days per calendar year since I saw nothing stating otherwise, but it turns out their year starts the day you enter, so, long story short, I’m not getting into Ecuador.

What follows is a mess of convincing the bus driver to let me get my luggage out, convincing the Peruvian border guard to cancel my exit stamp, and saying an unexpected and sad goodbye to Bethan and Rob, knowing I won’t see them again until I visit Wales in about 2 years time if all goes to plan.

I get all that done successfully, then it’s the tedious matter of staying awake all night at the border before catching a taxi back to the Peruvian side of the border, and then trying to find my way back to Tumbes to see If I can buy a visa to get into Ecuador at the consulate.

I’m lucky in a bus packed full of Colombians coming all the way from Cali agrees to give me a lift to Tumbes absolutely free of charge. I make lots of friends because as I’ve learned over and over again Colombians are awesome before heading to the consulate. There I meet a bunch of Afghani and Pakistani people arranging visas for Ecuador and spend an hour waiting only to be told I absolutely cannot get a tourist visa, Information I still believe to be wrong.

I leave defeated and exhausted and get a room in the Hotel Gran Imperial (40 soles but good wifi) and sleep most of the day of the way briefly walking around Tumbes without my camera. It seems like a very nice city and the locals were very friendly with me.

The next morning I watch Man united and plot my next move, ultimately deciding I’m not going to let the whales evade me this time. That in mind I hop in a minibus to Mancora (10 soles and about 2 hours).

Mancora is a touristy little town on the northern coast known for surfing and partying, but I’m not there for either of those, I’m looking to get out on the Ocean with Pacifico Adventures, a company based in Los Organos, one town over from Mancora.

I check into The Point hostel ( a clean and nice place to stay if a little too party oriented for me) and spend what’s left of the day relaxing on the beach and in hammocks, swimming and reading and playing with all the cats at the hostel.

I head into town for dinner and find some expensive but delicious Thai food at Tao Restaurant finishing my meal just in time to catch the sunset on the crowded Mancora beach.

I do my best to head to bed early knowing that my pick up for the whale watching at 6:40 the next morning. The cost of 120 soles including pickup and museum visit is well worth it, especially when you consider that if you don’t see any whales you can go again free of charge.

I climb in the transfer and relax during the 25 minute drive to Los Organos Pier where we are met by Daniel and Fiorella, our two guides for the day.

We head out into the pier and wait for our boat to get to the dock, that said the waitings not boring thanks to the incredible array of birdlife at the edge of the pier. Blue footed boobies, Pelicans, and strange black marine ducks posing for pictures and watching us with inquisitive stares.

As were lining up to board I even spot a giant marine turtle surfacing which makes me regret not bringing my snorkel, a lesson I’ll remember for the next day. We climb on board and meet our captain whose nickname is Chichi and then we’re heading out past the bird covered fishing boats moored near the pier.

We motor out into the open ocean and it doesn’t take long as we approach an old broken down concrete oil pier in the middle of nowhere suddenly Chichi is pointing out to the horizon and gunning the motor. In the distance I see a few sprays of water, humpback whales breathing no doubt.

There’s 4 boats out on the water’s today, but we’re by far the first ones to reach the group of three male humpback whales thanks to Chichi’s sharp eyes. It takes a while and a mildly rough ride but soon the whales surface maybe a dozen meters from the boat. I’ve been up close and personal with humpbacks 5 years ago in Southern Nova Scotia, but as these three behemoths surface, displaying their humps to us, I realize I’ve forgotten just how big humpbacks actually are.

We learn that humpbacks can swim at speeds of up to40 km/h and stay under water for upwards of 40 minutes at a time. The females are bigger than males some reaching 16-17 meters in length, while males rarely make it above 14 meters. Fiorella also tells us that they migrate between here and Antarctica every year, with a northern population doing the opposite reaching as far south as Ecuador before returning to Alaskan waters. Still they use the warm waters off Panama down to Northern Peru as a mating haven, meaning they are more playful and surface more.

As we watch them surface a few times we see our first tale as one by one they prepare for dives. The rough waters make it hard to get the tales on camera but a few photos do work out.

Eventually the other boats catch on to what we’ve found and join us, one of them even breaking the cardinal rule and cutting in the way of the whales path. Chichi seems very angry and just a minute later catches sight of something in the distance, a splash too big for a blowhole clearing. He confers with our two guides and insists we leave the other boat behind in the hopes of finding the rare jumping humpbacks.

No one is sure why the humpbacks jump like they do, some suspect it’s a mating ritual meant to attract the opposite sex, some believe it’s to communicate over vast differences, others think it’s a warning of an incoming threat, while some state it’s used to stun pray. And of course there’s still our guide’s favourite theory: they just do it for fun.

The further we go from Shore the rougher the Ocean gets but Chichi is far too excited to slow down, and as we zoom out towards the distant sprays, closer sprays hit our boat and soak anyone sitting near the front of the boat. I barely get my camera protected in time, and soon we are all soaked.

We zoom across the rough waters bouncing up and down as we all struggle to stay standing to watch the whales jumping ahead of, hoping with everything we’ve got they won’t stop as we draw closer. The energy boat is palpable and no one cares that we’re soaked and very gold, too caught up in these jumping giants to notice.

Eventually we pull up and settle in for a show as we rock with the rough waters. The jumping whales, three or four of them in total put on a show, and I’m lost in the magic of it barely remembering to take photos at first, luckily the go pro is running the whole time.

It’s tough to know when the whales will jump, but I manage what I think are some pretty damn good pictures. One of the whales also takes a break from jumping to wave it’s dorsal fin at us. You be the judge here, and sorry for the amount of them.

Eventually we have to head back so we speed in towards shore, making a brief stop at the old oil rig to check out countless more birds and some lazy sea lions lounging on the lower platform and reminding me of Valparaiso Chile.

We land at the port and climb back up onto the dock, marvelling at the collection of sea turtles coming to eat scraps of fish tossed to them by fisherman. Again I’m sad I didn’t bring my snorkel.

We head up to the museum included with our visited and also owned by Pacifico Adventures. It’s full of incredible fossils, bones, shells and pictures. Including a photo of something that is now extinct which I did not know existed, a shark 3 times larger than the great white, called the Megalodon. I end the day posing under some whale bones before booking another excursion for the next day. I can’t resist, today has been that amazing.