A last taste of Ecuador - July 2018

Bienvenidos a Guayaquil

It was a sad goodbye leaving our beloved Tag and Patches in Mirador San Jose to continue our travels in South America.   A few days before we had welcomed the new housesitter and spent a couple of days handing over the reigns.

We took our usual bus to Manta to get a connection straight through to Guayaquil.  A bit of a backwards way of going forward, but being a Sunday and having all our luggage with us, we didn't fancy the shorter more complicated route that at busy times there are no seats to be had and you're it, standing in the isle till a seat becomes available.  Fortunately our bus stopped in Jipijapa (pronounced: Hipihapa) where our favourite coffee roaster has a stall at the bus station.  There seriously is no other reason to go to or stop in this place but his coffee is amazing!  We had previously made the treck on a friends recommendation to buy five packets of the stuff to last our stay in San Jose.  This day we bought a hot coffee to enjoy on the bus.

Guayaquil is a bustling, noisy port city and is the gateway to the Galapagos.  Although the Galapagos was one of our wish list items of places to see in the world, we decided it was far too expensive and touristy for our budget.   We later found out that it may have been possible to talk a local boaty into taking us out there at a much cheaper fee.  Oh well, maybe next trip to SA ;-)  We were happy to just hang out in the city for a couple of days, enjoying the markets and street food. The quails eggs were to die for!

We also enjoyed the way the coffee was served in the cafes.   Strong cold espresso in a bottle which you added to hot milk or water.  A pleasant change from the 'not quite' Nescafe instant supplied on most of the cafe tables we had encountered so far.

We came here with a mission to buy a pair of jandals/flip flops each as both our pairs had died the silent death of overuse with two months on the beach.  Can't do better than US$5.00 for two pair.  The hussle and bussle of the markets are always great fun but soon have you feeling dirty and tired and ready to retreat to your hostal for a shower (and you are lucky if you have hot water) and bed.

We ventured out into other parts of the city to discover some awesome colonial architecture.

Some interactive (?) sculptures

Note the aforementioned new flip flops

And Simon Bolivar Park (many South American towns have one; poor man will be turning in his grave at the state Venezuela is in right now!) .... filled with many large lazy iguana.

And thanks to the smiley policewoman who took this photo for us :-)

Next we were headed into the mountains to the quaint wee town of Cuenca.  The views out the bus window were spectacular and reminded us very much of New Zealand.

In Cuenca we checked into a charming hostal, Casa Rumi, run by an equally charming expat US guy, Gary.  He was most accommodating and informative and cooked us a very filling breakfast every morning.  It was at one of these breakfasts that we met a fascinating Taiwanese couple who were cycling around the world.  They had already done a stint from NZ to Panama then returned home for a year and were just starting again.   Having exchanged social media details, we have been enjoying following their journey ..... part of their Ecuador story

Again we were impressed with the architecture ...

The wood carved inside of an old Farmacia

We were lucky enough to go on a magical mystery bus tour of the city!!!   The story starts with a guest at Rumi who was leaving Cuenca gave us a bus card and said if we put a couple of dollars on it we could get on the bus for 30c each and go as far as you liked on that particular bus.   Boy did that turn out to be true!   Having googled which bus we needed to get as close as possible to the lookout on the hill .... off we went.  (Spoiler: this is not the first, and won't be the last, time google information has failed us in South America :-)

Reading the paper at the lights!

Apparently there are two number 15 buses!  The one we confidently borded completely bypassed our drop off point and we ended up going to the last stop .... high on a hill completely on the wrong side of the city.   Not to be detoured, we had a cup of coffee and took another bus down the hill, across the city and got off around where we wanted to walk up the hill to the view point.  Mission accomplished.  This was the first time we had been at altitude for a while, Cuenca being at 2,500m, and it really does affect ones lung capacity on the uphill slog.  Still, it was worth the effort.

Big walk, time for a rest

After walking back down the hill (much easier), we stopped at a roadside roastery and enjoyed a meal of pork and veg. Delicious!   We turned down the opportunity to try the cuy (guinea pig), a local delicacy, at $20 a pop.

Roast piggy

Chicken and cuy roasting away

Remember that bus story above? .... it's about to get even weirder!  Priding ourselves being city bus experts by now, we got on a bus back that posted Terminal de Bus.   This would, in theory, drop us very near our next tick list item, the Panama Hat factory.  Hmmm, again we miss our stop and end up accompanying the driver to his last stop .... on the top of a hill on the other side of the city.   At this point we realise our poor grasp of the Spanish language is letting us down.  There seemed nothing to do but hop off and join some locals and other drivers (who found our predicament rather amusing) for a hot chocolate.  James got talking fishing, as you do, to another bus driver who then offers to take us where we want to go on his bus.  Or at least that's what we thought he said ;-)  Hey, don't knock it.  You can pay $8 each to go on the red double-decker bus on the full city tour, or you can get a completely accidental tour of the city for 60 cents each!  Hope you're keeping up so far ...

Oh, and true to his (Spanish) word, the bus driver did get us to the hat museum,free of charge no less.   The Panama Hat was actually founded in Ecuador and the museum was a real treat.   It was free to enter and really fascinating to be able to watch the process in action ... and try on some of the more upmarket hats.

Exhausted from all this galavanting we limited the balance of our stay to activities closer to home.

Mercado 10 de Agosto ... another whole pig roasting

This cute young man is enjoying a yoghurt
drink we gave him after being given a couple
at a promotion further up the street

Oranges on the loose

Cake shop

Not seen a harp busker before!

We found this cool museum which is built on an old Incan ruin site, telling the story of the Inca's history.  James wasn't enamoured with the layout which attempted to tell the story by region rather than by timeline.   Still, there were some very cool displays.

Street art of Cuenca