I wouldn’t have thought there would exist such a large natural eco-system in a part of the coast that has effectively been turned into a beach resort, albeit in Colan’s case a very traditional one. It turns out that the most fascinating thing in Colán is the nature. The beach was swarming with sand crabs, the skies with various types of gulls, the sand by the water with muymuyes and various tiny shellfish, the rocks with yet another species of crab, and there were some vultures too.

The sand crabs would run in and out of their holes as people came past, they were extremely fast and some quite large. The tiny ones were not yet big enough to be red in colour but were even faster.

We found one of the large rock crabs laying on the beach, right where it shouldn’t be. I can only guess it’s in their nature to go out there to die as they are so vicious that I doubt a bird could get at them and continue the food chain any other way. There were a few dead ones nearby that the gulls had already got at. Our one wasn’t quite dead yet and still had some fight in it. It wouldn’t run away but instead thrust its claws outwards and upwards at us. It lived for another 30 minutes or so before dieing, leaving some other creature the chance to live.

The next day we found a group of vultures feeding on a dead bird and also found a rocky part of the beach with hundreds of crabs.

Photos of the beach and crabs here.

Tags: animals, beach, colan, crab, piura