Part 3b: Ecuador

Puerto Lopez, Ecuador

Getting there and away:
From Canoa hop on the bi-hourly bus to San Vincente. Once there ask for the ferry launch across to Bahia, the bridge should be up in the next 2 years. In Bahia you can either pay a dollar to have a young guy bike you, and your hunched over traveling partner, your bags (still attatched to your back), to the bus station or you can walk the 1/2 mile. Once at the bus station, ask for tickets to Hipijapa (best name ever). Make sure that the people yelling out bus destinations know you already have purchased a ticket, otherwise you can wind up on the wrong bus! In Hipijapa take the opportunity to gorge on bus mall street food before boarding your next bus. Everything from corn cakes with cheese and meat to geen mango slices with salt can be purchased for less than a dollar. Once you are satiated hop on the next departing bohemian curtained ride to Puerto Lopez.

Places to Stay:

Contrary to your prior experience in Baños do not fall for the tuk tuk motorcoach waiting to take you to a reputable hostal. While it may be ¨free¨ you will inevitably feel compelled to pay the driver something for his time, even though he took you to the biggest dump of a building you have ever seen in your life. Once you assuage your guilt by ways of a dollar pay off head up the malecon (waterfront) to Hostel Isolet. This cool, if not slightly funky place, has private rooms, a balcony kitchen and hang out area as well as the security of a pegboard behind the usually unmanned desk to hang your room key.

Places to Eat:

Patacon Pisao: This Colombian place has all kinds of plantain and corn creations sure to please. It is slightly spendy but well worth it, if only for the delicious tomato based sauce used to marinate the chicken and meats.

Cafe Ballena: AMAZING breakfast. Apple cinnamon pancakes, omletes with crazy amounts of veggies and fresh bread. Be wary of the book exchange, the owner uses it as her own personal library and if she does not want to read what you have, you will be leaving with the same book you had hoped to unload.

Tiki hut: The best banana milkshakes. Period.

Pluses:

The town is nice and small, easy to explore in a day, the waves are almost non-existent so swimming, if you can brave the cold, is good. The nearby national park has an entry point at a town called Agua Blanca. The town is miniscule but the tour is interesting (ages old underground ceramic burial tombs), capped off with a mysterious and magical (holy for the locals) sulfuric thermal bath. The mud at the bottom is very good for the skin and for easing the sting of your various bites! Beware for the mud bath monster!

Minuses:

The town is nice and small, you are easily identified as a tourist, people will try and sell you tours at every corner. If it´s not whale season paying 25 dollars to spend 6 hours in a boat, eat rice and beans, and snorkel when its cold out does not sound like very much fun.

Hosteria Alandaluz, Ecuador

Getting there and away:
Take the southbound bus out of Puerto Lopez towards Puerto Rico (the town not the country). Make sure you tell the driver you are going to the hosteria and stand by your bags. Little children using them as seats have wandering hands. After about 30 minutes you will be let out on the side of a dusty road next to a castle-y looking entryway. Hosteria Alandaluz is a fairytale come to life.

Places to stay:

The hosteria provides accomodations ranging from camping to 5 star rooms. The whole resort is sustainably built, bamboo, stone and wood being the main materials. Thatched roofs turn every structure into the buildings of postcards and the whole beachfront situation only adds to its charm. The campsites are empty during the low season, giving you prime real estate for an easily negotiated rate. Bathrooms are clean, and the showers, while frigid, are great at removing the dust and salt of the day.

Places to eat:

Your campsite. Bring fuel and food. The hosteria restuarant, while beautiful and yummy is overpriced. By mixing in instant oatmeal, ramen, homemade camp stove chilli and pb and j with eating ¨out¨ you can have an awesome experience without breaking the bank.

Restaraunt Bamboo: The hosteria resturant. Ceviche, chifles (everyones favorite thinly sliced and deep fried plantain, so good!), shrimp and the like. Good food, grand prices.

Pluses:

Isolated location, beautiful surroundings, empty beach that goes on and on. This place would be ideal if only the sun would come out! Make sure to go in high season if possible.

Minuses:
When you decide to offroad it after a trek south down the highway yeilds nothing of intrest, tresspassing on someones undeveloped land might seem like a good idea. BEWARE, unless you are wearing copious amouns of bugspray, enjoy getting lost in a wooden and swampy wetland, or want to put some permanent scars on your legs to show you are a hardcore tree whacker, it´s better to just turn around and head right back up the road. Plus your brand new Croatia jersey you just bought that day for $5 will be permanantly ruined!

Montañita, Ecuador

Getting there and away:

Follow the previously mentioned trend, hop on a southbound bus!

Places to Stay:

The beach: not reccomended unless you want to be told a million times by numerous concerned locals that the beach is dangerous at night and that the clothes will literally be taken from your back should you choose to remain at your makeshift campsite. However, many bohemian travellers are camped just down the way, leaving you scratching your head. Just go with the flow.

Some random persons backyard: A much better camping option, for a couple of dollars you can move your tent behind a house, this gives you much more secuirty, there is a guard dog and a big fence around the property which you will have to artfully manuver over when you want to hop from the persons raised land to the sand below. The outhouse is small but services daily needs. There is a water spigot in the ground to wash the sand off your feet. The smelly inslet bordering one portion of the property serves to whisk the bump and grind music from the bars in town right into your tent at 4 am and the tree that you are under will drop unidentifiable objects on you as you sleep. Oh and the guard dog might pee on your tent.

Places to eat:

Everywhere and anywhere. Everything in this surfers mecca is cheap and good. The whole town is geared towards young and slightly broke tourists. You can have a really filling meal for super cheap and fried goodness is avilable on every corner for late night munchies.

Pluses:

Cool vibe, good food, nice beach, cheap sleeping.

Minuses:

If you are not going to party till after dawn every night bring ear plugs.

Guayaquil, Ecuador

Getting there and away:

Keep on heading south. Easy as pie, bus ticket, straight to the HUGE terminal in Guayaquil, bypass the numerous fast food resturants, which suddenly all hold a lot of appeal, and hit the local bus crossing on the other end of the station. Board the number 65 bus, it is hidden away in a back corner so it is easier to muster up the courage to ask one of the armed police officers milling around where to catch it than it is to try and find it yourself.

Places to Stay:

From experience and talking to other seasoned travlers it can be concluded that NucaPacha Hostel is the only real choice in town. This German/Ecuadorian run place opened just 5 months ago but with free internet, free breakfast and a clean and luxurious pool it really cannot be beat. The Urdesa neighborhood is one of the nicest and safest in this chaotic city, seriously, armed guards are everywhere, the local McD´s, the video store, even in front of the crosswalks.

Places to eat:

Calle 9 in the Urdesa neighborhood is one long line-up of shopping and eating. Chifa restaurants abound, as well as Arabes (Middle Eastern food) that often double as hookah spots. The Sushi is killer: a boat load (literally, the sushi is served on a wooden boat) of sashimi and rolls for less than 10 bucks. Downtown you will find only almuerzos (lots of rice!) and fast food, but with luck you may find a decent sandwhich shop specializing in Spanish sandos. The chicken mushroom is a good choice. For the homesick traveller, try the grilled cheese sandwhiches that can be made at your hostel for a very modest price. Hits the spot!

Pluses:

Malecon 2000: The pride and joy of a city steeped in an unglamourous history full of street violence, this two mile long cement waterfront walkway is colorful, cheerful, well guarded, and hot! Dont even think about trying to shed your shirt though, the whistles are on you like the sweat running down your spine. Walk to one end for a steep climb up an old colorful neighborhood (again, many officers lurking) that rewards you with panoramic views from an old lighthouse. There is an awesome pirateship at the top, which will be closed at the very moment you want to have lunch there, much to your dismay.
Futbol!!!There are two soccer teams in town. The fans are crazy on either side, but the overwhelming majority favor the uppity and successful Barcelona side. The other team, Emelec, has 80 years of history and very little success as far as can be gleaned from the surface. If you feel like jumping on a bandwagon choose Emelec, as the Barcelonistas, or Canarias (yellow jerseys), are extremely snobby and it is worth it just to engage in friendly rivalry with them. The Emelec Stadium is extremely rowdy in the Barra (die-hard fan section), and the final suggestion is to learn some of the chants ahead of time so that you arent just humming along, singing a few random words you pick up on, and waving your hands forward in a show of support. PS, make friends with people around you because everyone shares their beer!

Hostel Nucapacha: This city is hot, and they have a pool in the afternoon sun. What could be better?

Parque de las Iguanas: There is a park smack in the middle of downtown that is infested (and I mean that in the nicest way possible) with iguanas. Dinosaur-looking slitherers roam the branches above and the walkways below. Although they look slightly intimidating, they are vegetarians and occasionally dont mind being pet. The park also has a pond with close to 100 turtles. A tortugista´s dream!

Minuses:
Downtown is a bit grimy and with very little to offer the sightseer. There are parks, and they are big (one takes up four square blocks!), but little else.

Part 3a: Ecuador

Quito, Ecuador

Getting there and away:
Take your last brightly colored, neon lighted, feather boaed, city bus from Panama City to the international airport. Do not get discouraged by people who tell you not to take the bus, it does not take 5 hours, it takes 45 minutes, it is not packed tightly with people and, if it is, your heavy and ominous looking backpacks will clear seats in a way that livestock can not even begin to hope for. Get off when the driver yells at you. Once in the airport go with the flow, before you know it you will have eaten an entire subway footlong, a package of oreos, the provided sack lunch on the plane and some ice cream. If you make it through the flight without blowing chunks the altitude change in Quito will only add to your discomfort! Once in Quito, pass through the H1N1 checkpoint (all they do is take your picture?) and make your way to the city bus outside. With some carefull manuevering of your backpacked body you can squeeze onto the tram and into the colonial part (read: safe at night) of this large and amazing city.

Places to stay:
La Posada Colonial, this large and high ceilinged hostel is very rustic (in a good way) with small but clean rooms, a little kitchen, which somehow services a resturaunt in high season, and shared bathrooms. Be careful when bathing as the shower lacks walls, glass and curtain. Jaime, the guy in front, speaks softly but carries a lot of keys. He is not good for much except letting you in and out of the hostel, questions about what to do and where to go reveal, that you, in 2 hours, have seen more of the surrounding neighborhoods than he has. He does not get out much.
Places to eat:
La Ronda: Not mentioned in the guidebooks due to its history as crack alley, La Ronda is now the artsy, hipster haunt. At night the street is transformed into a ¨Last Thursday¨like scene with vendors selling everything from Empanadas to Canalazo (a sweet, thick, alcoholic yummy thing).
Aladdin: Hookahs, televisions, schwarma and futbol unite in this disney namesake. Go during an Ecudadorian world cup qualifier and mingle with the delightful crowd and you can pretend to know which team is which (Warning: Colombia and Ecuador share the same colors). Aviso: An Ecuadorian journalist will befriend you and add your email address to the final pages of his notebook (and show you his coutry´s flag). Don´t get your hopes up though, he wont write!

Pluses:
This city rocks, the old city transports you to another world where horses and buses coexist peacefully. There are plazas and parks galore, walks through the city reveal new things everyday and food is cheap.

Minuses:
The Panaderias are everywhere and they look amazing. You will ooh and ah over cinnamon rolls, empanadas, bear claws and the like. Our advice is either look and dont eat or prepare yourself for dry, dry, dry and semi- flavorless. So sad. To put it lightly, the public stairs can be a daunting task. Trade your 40 in for a bottle of water.



Baños, Ecuador

Getting there and away:
Take the tram from Quito to Quitombe (the station on the northernmost end of the line). Once in the bus station follow the man yelling, ¨Baños, Baños, rapido, ahora¨, stand your ground enough to inform him you have not purchased a ticket or security will send him running back (with an exasperated glance) to purchase passage for you.

Places to Stay:
As much as your every instinct screams against following a wayward teen home from the bus station, if the teen is from Ricky Hostel, just go with it. This place is close to the terminal, ie. across the street, but has cute little rooms, private bathrooms, cable tv and kitchen access for guests. All for a whopping 5.00 each. The place is secure, and the only downside is that the massive family who owns, and lives in, the hostel, does not like to do dishes, rendering the kitchen somewhat of a hazerdous zone. Paper towels and a strong stomach will be your new best friends.

Places to Eat:
It is time the concept of the Chifa was introduced. Chifas are quite frequent in Ecuador and simply mean Chinese Resturant. They are cheap, clean, and generally pretty darn satisfying. Baños has 2 Chifas, either one is a good option for a hot, incredibly filling meal. The owners speak Chinese and Spanish, although the fluency of the Spanish has been questioned in the past. Be very clear when you point at items on the menu or you could wind up with the wrong dish!

Casa Hood: You will wish you found this place before the day you were leaving. Good varied menu. The nachos are awesome and the salad has real, not iceberg, lettuce.

Some dutch cafe: The woman who owns the place is obnoxious, she reps her food over and over, forgetting that she already told you the smoothies cost 2.00 more than everywhere else because they are 80% real fruit. When you can plug the place right along with her she lets you order. The prices are high but the food is good. Resist the chocolate cake. While the homemade bread is awesome the sweets here parody everywhere else is Ecuador. Dry Dry Dry.

El Mercado Central:
Ridiculous food, cheap, half the time you don´t know what you are getting but it´s all good. The banana empanadas are amazing.

Pluses:
This mountain city is small but charming. There are senderos (trails) for days, and views to breathe really heavily for. The "mostly downhill" ride on mountain bikes to Puyo (60 KM) rewards bike renters with the gift of gravity and the chance to take a 150 foot high cable car, as well as some arduous climbs. A beautiful, waterfall-filled ride, best taken when there will not be a downpour (or two) of rain.

Minuses:
The baños, hot baths, are enclosed in public swimming pools, packed with tourists and locals alike on one end of the town, and empty, but smelly, on the other.

Canoa, Ecuador

Getting there and away:
From Baños, board an early evening bus to Ambato. When you get off the bus, seemingly in the middle of a busy street without any signs, jump straight into a taxi, don´t try to walk to the main bus terminal, it´s really far. Once at the bus terminal ask around for the bus to Portoviejo. The bus runs overnight, young teens will come on and preach at random intervals (2:00am, 3:30am etc), giving away hard candy in exchange for ¨donations¨ which are expected because they are young, go to school and don´t do drugs. Hmmm. Once in Portoviejo, around 5:45am, repeat the word Canoa until you are red in the face. Eventually you will be hearded onto a commuter bus, chickens allowed, and 3 hours later, Canoa.

Places to Stay:
Hotel Bambu: This place is right on the end of the strip on the northern side of the beach. Bordered by the ocean on one side and a freshwater inlet on the other the camping spots are superbly located. Clean outdoor showers and bathrooms are a plus and the water from the sink is perfectly acceptable for washing fresh fruit, dishes etc. The hotel offers many lounging spots for both day and nighttime usage. What the staff lacks in hospitality is compensated for by the secuirty of a locked luggage room.

Places to Eat:

Hotel Bambu: The resturaunt and bar serve up consitently good food and drink. The ecologically minded hotel rewards trash collecting with a free cocktail for every full bag of garbage brought in off the beach! Beware that the happy hour 2 for 1 special really means 2 for 1, you order a maragarita they are going to make you 2, right there on the spot. The resturaunt, while slightly overpriced, is delicious and the ambience, right on the beach with conch cell lights on every table, is very tropical.

The Surf Shak: Operated by a couple from Denver this place has a great book exchange and a semi-decent hamburger. Word on the street is that the specials board is the only menu you should actually order from (hind sight is 20/20).

The hut on the street that has a sign for empanadas: You can feast on fried goodness at this little hole in the street for pennies. Everything is good and hot although it´s best to chow down without worrying about exactally what type of meatish thing you are eating.

Pluses: Canoa is full of friendly rasta like surfer locals who are always up for a game of futbol or volleybol. The ocean is warm and semi-calm, perfect for swimming and the caves at the northern end are a fun journey to make.

Minuses:

After a week a hot shower sounds so good but the water in your shower is cold. Summer on the coast in Ecuador does not begin until December. The weather is still kind of warm but sunshine is something to be treasured.

Part 2: Panama

Bocas Del Toro, Panama

Getting there and away:

After you have worked your way down south on the Pacific coast of Costa Rica it is possible to catch a bus from Uvita, Costa Rica to La Frontera (the border). After you get off the bus and enter the mayhem that is a border town make sure that you double back 100 yards to the blue emigration stand. It is here that you recieve an exit stamp in your passport. Failure to do so can result in a day lost in detention at the police station getting grilled and having your bags checked (or so we have heard). After you purchase your tourist stamp, tourist card and go through immigration on the Panamanian side of La Frontera, plan on leaving your capacity to make decisions for yourself behind. You will be hearded, yelled at, forced to change money even though you already have US dollars (which coincendentally are the national currency in Panama), and eventually put onto a bus headed towards David. You are a tourist, you are obviously going to ¨Bocas.¨

Once in David, a small city built solely around people coming to and fro, you will again be told that you are going to Bocas and will find yourself on a completely different bus, without even knowing you have moved, headed towards what you hope is your intended destination. After a crazy, winding, not for the faint of heart, drive in a packed minibus, spanning a total of 3 hours, you will arrive in the middle of nowhere. Don´t panic, once again, a taxi miraculously appears, knows where you are going, and whisks you away, leaving you, in what is now a familiar state, speachless. The final leg of the trip, to be done in complete and utter blackness, is a 45 minute ¨ferry ride¨ in what is actually a small fishing type boat. Coming from Costa Rica, the trip to Bocas is possible to do in a day, although you will arrive exhausted and barely have made the last taxi boat ride from the mainland to Isla Colon.

Places to Stay:

Hotel Cayo Zapatilla is on the main drag in Bocas. For a mere $10 dollars a night, $20 for a couple, one can stay in a musty, slightly damp, maybe cockroach infested, but all together decent private room with an en suite bathroom. Don´t look too closely at the floor in the shower.

Places to eat:

Street stalls! Smoothies, grilled chicken sandwiches, empanadas, hamburgers, you name it but that is about it.

The Pirate Restaurant, on the water, 2.50 margaritas and pina coladas until 7:00pm ¨happy hour¨, edible food.

Pluses:

A nice laid back, hippie, rasta, traveling port with plenty of other foreigners to make you feel right at home. A beach on the other side of the island, Bocas del Drago, will brighten your day with hundreds of starfish on the cusp of the shoreline. Friendly monkey dudes will also fulfill your lifelong dream of having a monkey in your lap!

Minuses:

The beaches that Bocas is famous for are not walking, or in most cases, driving distance. More expensive boat taxis are a must for getting to the picturesque places of guidebooks and travel posters. If you are a surfer or a surfer watcher, you will be disappointed should you travel here at the endo of August (there are no waves!).

Panama City Panama

Getting there and away:

Ah... back to David. Figure out where the direct bus to La Ciudad is, the woman in the ticket booth is very helpful, wait in the longest luggage line ever to put your pack underneath the bus and climb on. Bringing food is highly reccomended. The ride is about 8 hours. The movies are pixeled, the creepy guy next to you will not stop staring, and the bathroom is little more than a hole in the floor.Once you get there, you will find a city that is full of suprises. There is a massive downtown area full of sky scraping casinos and expensive hotels, which makes you think there is a fair amount of wealth. After you have stayed a short while and explored the remainder of the city, you will find that there is more than meets the eye. The Casco Viejo, which is where early european settlers first built homes along the Caribbean Sea, is as precious in its three story compacted architecture as it is in its narrow brick laiden streets. Busses and taxis whizz by, all but eradicating the already miniscule sidewalks.

Places to stay:

Zulys BackPackers, home away from home in the heart of downtown Panama City´s ¨Bancaria¨ district (named as such for all the banks nearby!). Clean kitchen, comcast cable, a/c, free internet, lockers, all night access, and friendly staff ready to help you plan a trip to the San Blas islands.

Places to eat:

Restaurants are aplenty! The diner around the corner from Zuly´s will serve you good breakfast for a cheap price, but don´t be fooled by the ¨huevos, rancheros style¨. This is not the delicious treat you have been eating at home for years, and is rather a spiffy way of saying ¨eggs with salsa on top¨. Cooking in the hostel is a fun experience, but think twice when your girlfriend wants to cook rice ¨paella style¨ (unless she is spanish!).

The best restaurant in town is called Manolo Caracol. You will meet a spanish couple (to be explained in the following section), they will have a brother that moved to Panama from Colombia and formerly from Spain, and he will own this restaurant. The recommended option is to share a meal at the restaurant with this couple, as they will not know the answer to how expensive the food is (you get the feeling it is fairly high-end) because they ¨never pay¨. However, if you happen to only have their final night in town available before they return to Spain, they will probably be booked for the evening for a dinner with their family. Do not fret, the trip is still worth it even if you have to shell out the dough (and odds are you have amazing family friends back home that asked you to use the money they gave you to buy a nicce fancy meal somewhere you otherwise wouldn´t). All twelve courses of the meal are planned and prepared by the house. Shrimp, beef kebabs, thai-spanish rice, and ceviche to name a few. Go and eat there. Its worth it!

Pluses:

This crazy big, varied city has all the comforts of home, the colonial part of the city is awesome and people will ask you if it is like New Orleans. You will say that it is, even if you have never been there! The .25 a ride city busses are very familiar as they are just souped up versions of the big yellow ones you took as a kid. Disco lights, feather boas, graffiti and headlights that blink like eyes are all part of the charm. The Panama Canal is pretty neat too.

Minuses:
There are no beaches close by, it is hot, there is one known public pool in whch gringos are not allowed and the showers in the hostel are pretty suspect.

San Blas Islands, Panama

Getting there and away:

You will be roused from sleep at 4 am by the night manager of the hostal who wants to make sure that you have enough time to eat breakfast before your 4 X 4 (the Panamanian way of saying, Jeep Cherokee) arrives in 1 hours time. Nevermind that you already set your alarm for 4:45 am. You will cram into the Jeep with random other travelers, no one feeling much like talking, and make a treacherous 3 hour journey (the handles in the Jeep get plenty of use) towards the launching point for the Islands in Kuna (the native people) land. Along the way police will stop the Jeep, make everyone get out, take passports, not tell you what is going on, give you back the wrong passport (if you are a male with long hair, beware, your passport may be given to a small Jewish girl by mistake) before finally letting you go without explanation. You will cross a river, in the car, without a bridge, literally cross a freakin river, and finally arrive, bladder totally full, at a small white concrete building with random people milling around outside. After about 20 minutes of trying to figure out what is going on you will be hearded onto a multicolored wooden boat, with a driver who is grooving in his vintage, well loved, old school, Patrick Ewing jersey, and taken 45 minutes to an island in the middle of the ocean that appears to be smaller than a football field. You have arrived on Franklin´s Island (yes his name really is Franklin and it really is his island).

Places to stay:

At Franklin´s of course. You will be given a small thatched hut, 5 feet from the water´s edge, with nothing but a nice bed and the sandy floor of the island for furniture.

Places to eat:

Also at Franklin´s. 3 meals a day, all lukewarm, containing a small portion of sometimes unidentifiable meat, some sort of wilted lettuce, boiled potato and of course rice. On off days a big bowl of sauceless spaghetti arrives in front of you, just pray it´s chicken on top and not canned tuna. On the flip side, halfway through your stay, you might be fourtunate enough to make friends with a boisterous Spanish couple who are thrilled that you speak Spanish. They will know Franklin, have a brother that does fishing buisness with the locals and will get VIP (ie. Lobster, conch, huge shrimp) food treatment which they will graciously share with you!

Pluses:

The most amazingly beautiful serene and laid back environment ever. Hammocks, swimming, snorkeling, beach volleyball, rum, coconuts, beer, the day is full of endless time to do nothing at all! Also... If you get lucky a local Kuna woman will have reached her ¨female transition¨and there will be a huge festival on a close by island where you can view all the locals getting down and dirty with their bootleg everclear, dancing in the streets and 4 days of sleepless insanity.

Minuses:

The shower only works when the water tanks on top have been filled, get used to being slightly salty and sticky.

Aside:

Franklin´s Island has been fondly nicknamed little Israel due to the overwhelming majority of Israeli travelers who constantly cycle through-the signs on the island are in English and Hebrew, not Spanish. They are primarily a great bunch (avoid political discussions), always down for a game of Yanniv (cards) or some volleyball.