Crucita beach hiking, past civilizations and natural beauty

Last Sunday we went for a great walk on the beach with the family... about 4 miles along an amazing untouched coastline. We left from our house in Crucita on foot and made our way south along the coast. There are no roads and we didn's see a single other person on the beach. Here's my cousin, mom, and Lynn chatting it up on the way.

We planned the hike during low tide so we had plenty of beach to work with...

Here is one of the critters we met along the way. This fellow was quite huge and relatively passive... I was within centimeters of him when I took this photo.

Then things started to get even more interesting! We started finding all kinds of interesting things on the beach...

Including pottery shards from past civilizations. Coastal Ecuador is known for its archaeological history and on this untouched stretch of beach we ran into the remnants everywhere!

and the wildlife kept things interesting...

We found amazing shells, including the famous spondylus that used to be used for money...

and then things really got crazy when my mom came across a figurine!! We were completely blown away that this was just sitting at the base of an eroding beach terrace!

Here you can see the pot shards eroding down the hillside toward the beach!

and we saw the clear sign of Ecuador's volcanic history. The thick white layer in this photo is an ash deposit from a past volcanic eruption hundreds of miles away near Quito.

When we arrived in Jaramijo, our destination for the day and the next town south of Crucita we were welcomed by friendly faces who served up cold drinks and brought out extra chairs for us to take a break and enjoy the shade!

We then grabbed a 35 cent bus to Manta, had a great lunch in front of the ocean, and split the $15 cab ride back to Crucita. So many smiles with a such a small price tag. The next day we headed into Bahia for business and so my folks and cousin could go on a tour... and stopped by the archaeological museum to bring them the figurine (we couldn't leave it to the waves...). I'll post that story tomorrow! By the way, Lot 7 is one of the closest lots to this undeveloped beach!