Guayaquil Adventures First Day

We landed in Guayaquil late on a Friday evening. Easily caught a taxi, negotiated the fare to $3 (I feel like a pro) and got to our hostel (Hostel Murali) ready for a good night's sleep.

Don and staff greeted us with smiles as we dragged our weary bodies inside - they quickly grabbed my heavy suitcase with a motion of 'I got this, let me help you.'

Side note: I love being a woman in Ecuador, all the men seem so eager to help with heavy items, opening doors, pointing out possible dangers while stepping off a curb, etc. How nice! Too bad the guys here in the States sometimes run into 'crazy women' when they try to be a gentleman. I'll take chivalry any day!

Back on track: we are registered, paid, and with a cold water bottle given to each of us, shown our room. We have a large room facing the street. The room is quite clean, the large bath is rather old, but clean and the best part? No electric/death shower head! (Yesss.....score!)

The air conditioner is already running, the room is nice and cool on this muggy evening. The sounds of the neighborhood are fun sounds, nothing too loud or crazy. Music is playing, people are talking, the normal sounds of a Friday night, and the air conditioner hum covers most of the street noise. We are so tired, we quickly fall asleep.

"MARLENA! MARLENA! Mi ESPOSA!"  I open my eyes and yes, the sound I hear is real, not from a dream. "MARLENA! MARLENA! Mi ESPOSA!"  Over and over. And over. And....you get the point. Up and down the streets this poor guy is shouting at the top of his lungs. Did he screw up and have to shout out his love for all in the barrio to hear? Or was he looking for his wife? Was SHE the party girl? Hmmm.... and all this around 5am. Couldn't really read my phone clock, at least not at THAT hour....(yawn).

We get up, get our 'stuff' together and I go downstairs for breakfast. Ken is upstairs still getting ready, and I end up chatting with some expats, chatting (sorta kinda) with the staff, and enjoying my very strong, very black, very yummy coffee. The staff was acting surprised I didn't want leche or azucar. The gal who brought me breakfast gave me this HUGE smile when I took a sip of black coffee and liked it. I guess many Americans like their coffee with lots of sugar and cream. After a few cups of coffee, I was ready to tackle the adventures of the day....

One of the guys tried to fix my luggage handle that LAN broke. Yep, went the entire week without rolling luggage, poor Ken, he ended up dealing with that and many times his bag, too. Glad I married a hunky strong guy! When he heard we needed a taxi to the bus terminal, he literally took our bags, and put them in his car. We were at the station in minutes, and he charged us $2. So far, so good.

Terminal Terrestre - Crazy! Busy, that is. While I waited for Dan and his girlfriend Priscilla, Ken went scouting for the Reina ticket window and bus departure times to Manta. The terminal has many stores, it looks like a mall when you enter, and it is HUGE. When Dan and Priscilla arrived, we headed to the Claro store to get a phone since Ken's phone took a mini-sim card and the store didn't have one. We needed to buy a phone. Oh well, now we have an Ecuadorian phone and number, and it's registered.

Now on to get our bus tickets. Priscilla is awesome, she is making sure the tickets we buy are for the air conditioned executive bus to Manta. She repeats in Spanish several times and makes the woman at the ticket counter confirm the right bus. Once we get the tickets, we literally run, across the terminal, up the escalator, and down the hall to the correct 'gate.' Poor Dan is carrying luggage, running (yes, running!) UP the escalator. What a friend :)  The bus is supposed to leave and Priscilla says they usually leave on time. That seems like quite a contradiction because nothing leaves on time in Ecuador, right?

We give our 2 bags to the guy who puts a tag on them and gives us a matching tag, and the lady at the door (bus assistant) looks in my carry-on bag, and pats Ken down, even though they do not take away our knives. The knives were not hidden, but they were not loose either - they were in the pockets of our 'day packs.'  I notice one guy getting on the bus, and the assistant hops onto the bus after him and makes him get off and pats him down - a real pat down - and all the while lots of chattering and bickering and the guy isn't happy, but she got her way!

And we're off to Manta.....

No time to see the sights in Guayaquil today, but on our return we will be meeting up with Dan and Graciela.....

Hasta Luego, Chao Chao, and all the good stuff,

Tami

Found our Future Home

This post will be short, due to the extensive travel over the past week or so. We got in last night, er, um, this morning around midnight, we both went to 'work' today, and bottom line, we are exhausted. Long drives, long flights, and an amazing trip to Ecuador....well worth the hassle of travel.

Last year we took a trip to Salinas and visited surrounding areas. Loved it. Had a blast. This trip, we wanted to explore some other areas of the coast before deciding exactly 'where' to plant our feet. And, we decided to try using public transportation, to see if 'we could do it.' Crazy, yes. But, even though it is a pain to take the chicken bus, and dangerous according to some, it was a great adventure, and we are even more confident next time we are left at the side of the road in a strange city...that we are SUPPOSED to get off here and find another bus to get on, that will eventually take us to our desired destination." Yes, that sounds about right.

So, after traveling to: Guayaquil, Manta, being dropped off in Rocafuerte (didn't know where we were until we asked, lol....story coming later, it's a riot)....Jipijapa (pronounced hippy-hoppa-SERIOUSLY), Bahia, San Vicente, Puerto Lopez, Las Tunas, Canoa, Jama, all places in between, and Salinas....then back to Guayaquil.....we have found our future home.  

Drumroll please ------- Bahia. Yep, that little city between the Pacific Ocean and Chone River. New bridge that connects Bahia to the northern coast..... little sleepy Bahia aka Mayberry. Yep, both of us actually agreed on a city!! Lights, camera, action, we need to get this documented - we BOTH agree where we want to move.....and of course we are not in agreement as to when. Me, I want to move NOW. Ken, he is more patient. Of course. He is the model adult, I am the pain in the ass 'want to do it now' kind of gal. We are perfect together :)

Future posts, complete with pictures, will follow. Soon. Right now I need more (really good) wine, and relish in the fact I can #1 = brush my teeth with tap water instead of 'clean water' from a bottle, and #2 = flush my TP down the toilet. Oh, the little things we enjoy in life, heeeheeeheee.

Hasta luego, Chao chao, and all the good stuff,
Tami

Reservations, smeshervations...

As soon as we stepped foot back on US soil, Ken and I were already planning our next trip to Ecaudor. Flights were booked and confirmed, AND paid for before the end of 2011. Did I say PAID for? Yep. So imagine my surprise....

I had this nagging thought late one night - did I have seat assignments done on both flights? Hmmmm. I'm pretty sure I did that way back in December. I checked the printed out itinerary, and yes, I had. Nice. Now go back to sleep, Tami.

The next day went on as usual, but when I got home that evening, I still had this weird feeling I had better check our flights. Went online and typed in our reservation code. What???? Arriving in Quito? What???? Oh, there's Guayaquil, but what the heck - arriving late at night? What happened to arriving in the late morning? I was having a come-apart as they say in the South. Ken!!!!!!! He got on the phone with LAN, and of course there was 'nothing we can do, sorry."

For those of you reading this that have not yet traveled to Ecuador, or Latin American country, let me explain why this arrival time was so bothersome.

Reason #1 Traveling at night is a dangerous sport. I would rather go rock climbing and I am terrified of heights. Not only do busses get robbed at night, those drivers have a tendency, uh, to have a drink or three before their shift. They also have to dodge cows, pigs, rockslides, and all this on unlighted streets. So no thank you. I will travel during the day, and take pictures of the livestock roaming the streets.

Reason #2
We now have to spend the night in Guayaquil. More $$$ down the drain. This is really the pet peeve of mine. We do have reservations at Hotel Murali just a few blocks from the airport. So taking a taxi from the cooperative (taxi line at the airport) to the hotel will be fine, as we know where this hotel is, and if it were daytime we could walk, but alas....

Not everything is sour news though. Crap happens, it was just bothersome that the airline didn't notify us!! Glad we had time to make adjustments in our schedule. I cannot wait to embark on this journey, every step we take is one step closer to realizing our dream.

Our Route:
Our trip is extended by 1 day because of the flight mess. We are traveling up the coast from Guayaquil to Manta to Bahia, and back down to Puerto Lopez, possibly Montanita to visit friends, and then to Salinas for one night, and then back to Guayaquil. All of our travels will be by bus or taxi. We need to know if we can get by without a car, and this will also help our Spanish. Which sucks rocks, btw!

We have reservations at Hotel Murali, and from what I hear it will be a good experience. An expat friend recommended it, so glad she did, because I didn't want to take a taxi across town late at night. They will feed us breakfast the next morning, and we can then take our bags and walk to the bus terminal if the weather is nice outside. Off to the coast we go....

We are taking the executive bus (who knows which one, we will figure that out once at the Terminal Terrestre). We don't yet have reservations, but there are plenty of hotels in Manta, we will figure something out....living on the edge, love it (LOL)

I am very excited about the Bahia part of our trip, we will be staying in a nice B&B called Casa Grande. One of the expats made the reservations for us, which was such a help. I can't wait to dine at Puerto Amistad, the owner and chef is also from Alabama, and I look forward to hearing about his experiences living in Bahia. That, and enjoying fresh seafood and good wine.

We also have reservations at Hostel Mandala in Puerto Lopez., which is south of Manta. We will be there for two nights enjoying the beach. This will be the relaxing part of our adventure. In their pictures I noticed the mosquito netting over the bed. So no air conditioning, which is just fine by us, it will remind me of the Banana Azul in Costa Rica.

On our last night in Ecuador, we will be hanging out at Will's - Hostal Aqui, and enjoying the great food and friendship at Score Sports Bar. Wendy and I have a bottle of wine we need to consume! Oh, and their margaritas.....

The other nights we haven't planned out, we will fill in those blanks when the time comes.

Only a few more weeks.....getting super excited!!

Cheers, Tami

Guayaquil -Coming and Going

We didn't spend much time in Guayaquil. Not that we wanted to avoid the city, it just happened that we got a tad 'lost' on our way back from Salinas. Never knew there were so many Juan Carlos (insert name here) roads in that city!

So we ended up somewhere that didn't look so great, we backtracked and pulled into the Kia dealership in the hopes that someone would know how to get to the airport. Interesting how the guard had a weapon, at the ready. Alrightly then....even my teenage son made a comment about the 'readiness' of this guard. Hmmm, shall we open our windows, as it is close to 100 degrees (or so it seemed)...while we patiently waited for my husband to come back holding perfect directions to the airport? Where we had hoped to turn in our rental vehicle, and hop into a taxi that would take us to this nice Malecon 2000 we kept hearing about?

Fast forward one hour. Hubs, all happy, albeit a tad 'worn' emerged from the dealership, with a google-map to the airport. Because the people there didn't know how to get to the airport. Funny thing is, we are used to the 'directions' thing here, and our "we are in Latin America instinct" kicks in. What does THAT mean? Hehehehe.....

We follow the directions the lovely gentleman gave us (that really was so sweet of him to give us directions, not scribbled, but printed out!) - however, we knew that we might need to make some last minute, um, er, adjustments. Whatever do you mean Tami? Hehehehe.  Sure enough, in the middle of downtown, traffic snarled everywhere, where we were supposed to turn left, it was a one way street. Right only. Ha! I thought ahead and we plowed on through a few streets ahead, left turn allowed....but then....omg, how do we get over to where we were SUPPOSED to be, when there is an overpass, and, and...AUGH! Good news however. We kept on driving while I studied that map (really hard), and we MADE IT TO THE AIRPORT. In one piece. Car still intact. We deserve a medal.

Unfortunately, by the time we checked in the car, stored our bags in several lockers, and visited the, um, facilties, we didn't have much time to check out the Malecon. BUT I WILL NOT BE DETERRED!

We hop into a taxi (approved of course by the airport??) and head straight to the Malecon.

The few pics we got - first, rugrats are having a blast on this track - giggles galore:

Check out the haircut scene, on stage in front of everyone - yikes, that takes some balls!

Pics of the Malecon:

So we hang a left and head several blocks up to the indigenous market that Will told us about. We have to hurry but being in a 'punchy' mood, we take silly pics:

Do you know what this dog is doing? Thought the kid was going to have a laugh attack, me, um, I looked away (hubs took this pic, ewwww):

Um, maybe my kid wants that car?

We crossed this street. And even if there was a traffic light, do you think anyone paid attention?
The correct answer is NO:

We emerge from the indigenous market to see that it is somewhat, um, DARK. Not totally dark, but definitely in the dusk....

So we walk a bit fast, to get to the Malecon. All the warnings about taxis in Guayaquil have me a bit tense, so we look for a restaurant or even a hotel to call us a taxi. No such luck, but then again we are just trying to stay out of the way of the gazillion cars and taxis and lord mercy those damn buses!

We find someone who ends up talking to a transit police guy - and after about 5 minutes of various taxis passing by, the transit guy pulls over a taxi (his ID # matched on windshield, side and even rear window, whoo hoo!) and we get in. Me in the middle.

Now, I am not this fearful jittery kind of gal, but my kid is with me, and momma instinct is in full force. We are a tad quiet in the back seat, the taxi driver isn't speaking, but he has this cool music, and we start bee-bopping, loving the rhythm, the sound gets a bit louder, and....we are moving to the groove all the way back to the airport....watching where we are of course....and all 3 of us are smiling from ear to ear when we pull in to the airport.

Did you know you can drink in the airport terminal? You don't have to hide in a restaurant or bar? I took FULL ADVANTAGE. What a day!

Cheers,
Tami