Richristened "Galapagos of the poor" by the Ecuadorians because economically more affordable than South America's most renowned islands, Isla de la Plata is part of Machililla National Park, the only park created on the country coast and therefore of fundamental importance for the coastal habitat protection. We have become curious about the local legend, according to which Sir Francis Drake would have buried his treasures here - hence the name of the island. And so we arrive in Puerto Lopez, a fishers village that seems to be out of the world, and the departing point to the island.

At six o' clock in the morning we have to be up: a shower, breakfast and then off to the beach, looking for the boat that will bring us to the island. It's cold and a light drizzle falls, it wouldn't seem the best day for a love trip, but for fifteen days we've woken up under a dark sky that leaves room to the hot sun of the Equator only after two o'clock in the afternoon.

Our guide says hello to us, tell us to take off our shoes and puts them all in a huge jute bag: our feet in the chilly water of the morning, a jump to get on the boat and off we go. The island is quite far, it takes two and a half hours to reach it and among the chilly drops wetting our face, we can just see water sprinkling high from the sea: it's the whales, who swim around us arching their back and shaking their tail amid the waves.

Once arrived on the island, the guides bring us water to wash our sand-covered feet, give us back our shoes and give us something to eat: drinks, biscuits and a home-baked cake. Some of us would rather not eat because they've been mildly sea-sick, but the guides insist because food would ease our stomach and because, they tell us, we have to walk quite a lot. We penetrate in the rather dry vegetation, where now and then a green sapling or a candlestick-shaped cactus appears, we climb up a 200-step staircase that leads us to the centre of the island and end up in front of the crossroads between two different paths; we go for the longest one, the 5-kilometre Sendero Punta Escaleras, hoping to bump into sundry species of animals.

After a 5-minute walk we find a couple of Blue-footed Boobies, the most renowned bird of the island: brown and white mantle, long and pointed beak, big eyes and above all shining blue feet. They allow us to approach them very easily, and this being their courting period, we see them "dance" and "whistle" near what is their nest: a circle of guano that makes us realize the true origin of the island's name. Because guano, with the light of the sun, shines so much that looks like silver. Excellent flyers and divers, we see some of them take a run and leap off the steep cliff we're walking along, looking for food. We don't manage to find their "sisters", the Red-footed Boobies, but after some walking we bump into some Masked Boobies, so elegant with its eye-surrounding mask.

The guide walks us to a precipice from which we can admire the turquoise sea, where a turtle is swimming: we ask to go down and bathe in a small bay surrounded by pitch black cliffs, but he doesn't give us the permission because of shark danger.

We start walking again, now and then the guide offers us a sip of water he takes from the small tank he's bringing for us. We have our nice trainers whereas he's barefoot, but he walks faster than us. He shows us an hatching Albatross and one who is flying in the sky: he recognizes it at once from the way it flies.

After three and a half hours we go back to the boat, and we're granted a swim. We splash about in an area they say it's shark-free, and the guides lend us mask and snorkel. The water is chilly but it's worth it: we swim surrounded by tropical blue, yellow and orange fish, and if we look up we see Albatross and Boobies fly above us.

We get on the boat and dry ourselves, we're offered sandwiches and fruit, we go back towards Puerto Lopez. It's six in the evening when we set foot on sand again: a bunch of children come towards us and show us a row of coloured plastic chairs set for us. They want to make us sit and use the water tanks they prepared to wash our feet: so that the tourists who always have some money in their pockets can put on their shoes without having sand-covered feet after their trip, and at the same time the children can go home with a coin, a sweet, a piece of bread that allow them to survive.