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.