Guayaquil

End of the line, of sorts. If you look at a map of Ecuador, Guayaquil sits at the bottom (south) of the country. Although Quito is the capital, Guayaquil at 2.3 million inhabitants, claims the title of commercial and financial heart of the country. It’s the New York or Toronto of Ecuador. At sea level and just below the equator, it’s a hot sweaty city, and has the things you would expect from a big heaving mass of humanity in a developing country. Upon hitting the urban traffic chaos, we headed straight towards el centro (our usual strategy) and a rather nice walk-ride along el malecón (waterfront area), an award-winning  urban-renewal project – one of the biggest in South America. All in all, not a bad ride into a town of 2 or 3 million, marking the end of our coastal Ecuador journey.

The last part of the ride down the coast from Puerto Lopez continued through the cloud and drizzle, with an obligatory stop in the surf town and backpacker ghetto of Montanita. Despite our usual aversion to gringolandia, once in a while it’s nice to get to a place where we can find something other than the standard 3 food options: (1) chicken and rice, (2) pork and rice, (3) chicken and rice. Pizza?! Nice!! Actually, very good pizza (best so far). In a related story, a while back we bumped into an Ecuadorian guy who grew up in Toronto and therefore spoke perfect Canadian. We were thrown for a loop when this guy approached us with a “how yu guyz doin?” We sat down with him and talked a lot about being a Canadian in an Ecuadorian body. The funniest thing he said was “the pizza....just isn’t the same here”. Couldn’t have said it better. Anyway, this was pretty good pizza. Along with the happy-hour G&T’s (another perk of gringolandia), it was a tasty change from options 1 and 3.

So again, could have been the drizzle which turns the area into a mudbowl, but Montanita didn’t light us on fire. An amazing endless beach, again, but the town, again, a dirty old town, on steroids. However, we found a great place to stay on the beach and enjoyed a day off to relax. I even went swimming in the ocean for the first time in Ecuador, mostly just to say I did. Amy however, wanted nothing to do with it. As the song goes, wild horses couldn’t drag her away...and into the water.

Continuing south, the highway snakes its way through more coastal cloud forests. While a bit moist, we couldn’t help but be impressed with the jungle and diversity of vegetation and wildlife. It’s as if a bunch of monkeys are going to jump out of the trees and land on your head. Just as we were having that feeling, we came upon one of the cooler things we have ever seen on the road. TARANTULA! At least that’s what I think it was. While I do purport to be a biologist, I know nothing about huge hairy spiders. And that is exactly what it was, a huge hairy spider, about the size of my hand (with fingers extended). Just wandering down the road, it seemed to want to get up over the curb and away from us. We took the pics and let it get on with its life. As far as I can tell from my limited google research it appears to be one of the many species of tarantulas native to Ecuador (if anyone out there knows what this is, let me know!).

The Ruta Spondylus continues south to the town of Ballentia, where we spent the night, and then turns inland towards the big smoke of Guayaquil. While down on the waterfront of Ballentia – a micro dot on the map – having a very pleasant ceviche seafood dinner overlooking the ocean, we bumped into yet another Californian expat who gave us the local expat scoop. It seems Salinas, the city just down the road, has a sizable expat colony (for those interested in expat options). He, on the other hand, along with a dozen or so other Americans and Canadians, prefers the small fishing-village scene at Ballentia. Interesting world this expat thing.

Darting inland and across the inland scrub deserts towards Guayaquil brought us to an interesting cross road. At about the half way point in the highway, at about 75 km, the one and only town where we had planned to get a place to stay, fell flat. No accom. But, we were informed with a giggle from a young woman that there is a “motel” up the highway a few kms. We instantly knew what that meant. An interesting cultural facet here is the existence of “motels” – not to be confused with “hotels”. Similar to the love motels of Japan, these are basically drive-through by-the-hour places where couples can pull in and do what comes naturally for as little or as long as they want. Thus far, we have avoided them for obvious reasons. But being low on options, we reluctantly pulled over to check things out. Pleasantly surprised by the cleanliness and general state of the rooms, we took it. Once you get past the drive-through parking spots, the rubber curtains to shield the vehicles (so no one can see your car), the secret back door (so you can run out the back if need be), the lack of windows, and the vinyl pillows and mattresses, it ain’t bad! They even had a todo noche (all night) deal we were interested in. J We might just add the love motels to our quiver of accom options. As the saying goes, any port in a storm.

So here we are in Guayaquil, enjoying the comforts of a downtown hotel-hostel with a full kitchen (our fav, because it means we can cook up our own veggies...coconut curry tonight!). From here our plan is to take another side trip tomorrow (i.e., leave the bikes here and take a bus) to the colonial city of Cuenca. At 2500 m, it will be nice to get back into the mountains (a change is a good as a rest as they say). The plan is just a few days, then back to Guayaquil, then back on the bikes and south towards Peru! More on the Cuenca mission soon. Adios muchachos.