30th
Had to get up far too early (I’m never drinking again!) to go for a 5.45am panga ride around the nearby estuary. Large shallow sheltered bay with lots of mangroves growing on the basalt rocks. Saw lots of wildlife. Large and small eagle ray. A school of baby white tipped reef sharks. Lots of boobies and pelicans. We stopped at the end of the bay and a nearby mangrove branch was shaking violently. Juan Carlos looked closer and declared that there was a Turtle caught in the branch. We watched for a couple of minutes concerned for the poor creature until we realised it was two turtles having sex!
Back on the boat we had breakfast and packed our bags ready to leave for the airport.




There was a couple of numbered envelopes on our bed for the tips for naturalist and crew. The brochure for the cruise devotes an entire page to explaining what the suggested tip should be and going to great pains to point out that it is optional and the crew are paid good wages etc etc. We both thought the suggested amount was a bit high and the week long trip had already cost us a small fortune being about 50% higher than expected thanks to the Aussie dollar's performance the last couple of months. Ecuador's currency is USD.
We left the crew $60USD as they had been very friendly and helpful and they worked pretty hard to keep the boat clean.
Juan Carlos we left $20USD as although he had been informative during our trips and was happy to answer questions, some of the information he was giving us was incorrect (he needs to study up on his geomorphology) and despite him putting on a friendly face he was kind of a jerk.
Everyone gave him his tip envelope before we left the boat and he shot off to his cabin to check the numbered envelopes to see how much people gave him. “Oh dear” I thought. Are the low tippers going to get their bags accidentally dropped in the water while offloading?
He seemed to be quietly fuming to himself on the bus trip to the airport and when we all got off the bus he decided it was time to show us what a jerk he really was and declared that in all the years he has been doing tours he has never been so insulted and turning on a nice young Dutch couple he said they can have their $5 back and thrust a $10 note into the guys hand. He said this isn’t $5 and tried to give it back but Juan Carlos turned his back and walked away leaving them in tears of embarassment.
Up until that morning the trip had been perfect, what a way to leave a bad taste in everyone’s mouths! And to single them out in front of the group and give them $10 back was just nasty. We all wanted to ask for our tips back then but he still had all our plane tickets to book in our luggage so we were kind of stuck with him. He came back a few minutes later in damage-control mode and apologised for his behaviour but didn’t seem too sincere about it.

After booking in we had an hour to wait so went to the airport cafeteria and watched Darwin Finches hopping around on the tables eating crumbs.

The flight back to Quito was uneventful but boring as we had to stay on the plane for an hour while refuelling at Guayaquil.