Guayaquil. Ecuador, Part 2

Guayaquil is the largest city in Ecuador. Yep, took me by surprise, too. In fact, they have nearly a million more people than Quito. Located on the Guayas River just a few miles upriver from the Pacific, it is Ecuador's main port city. Our original intention was to take a bus from Quito down to Guayaquil, but there were safety concerns, what with muggings and rapes and all. So we all hopped on an AeroGal flight and headed on down to the coast.


After checking in at the Howard Johnson's, we had ourselves a nice meal outside along with our first taste of the Pisco Sour, an Ecuadorian mixed drink. Muy bueno, I must say. We didn't have time for much after that so , we just went down to this hill in the Las Peñas district, the artsy part of town. The hill has 444 numbered steps up to this old fort, complete with a lighthouse and a church. Great views of the city at night. We wrapped up the night with a few beers at this bar built into an old ship, or at least a replica of a ship.



On the 9th, we went down to the Malecon 2000, Guayaquil's recently renovated riverwalk. Millions were spent on this thing, as it's by far the most modern part of the city that we saw. It's probably the safest part of the city, and remarkably, it doesn't smell!! We went to a huge marketplace and bought our share of bags, Alpaca scarves, tee shirts, and Panama Hats. Love negotiating! "$20? No... how about $15?" This walk ended at La Rotunda, a statue of Ecuador's famous leader Simon Bolivar and some other dude.

For our last full day in the Guayaquil area, we chose to hire a driver to take us to the coast. We stopped first at the small beach "resort", Playas. Looking more like an abandoned former beach resort, our driver took us out of Playas and down a dirt road to a smaller fishing village. A more pathetic and sad scene I could not imagine. Garbage everywhere, half-haired pigs running around freely, and a rotting horse carcass on the road into this craphole, no one wanted to even get out of the van. We saw one guy in the doorless doorway of a house with no windows looking at his Blackberry. What the...? Stray dogs were everywhere. The smells of hot garbage, diesel, and death were enough to ruin your appetite, and the sights were enough to make you beg God for forgiveness for every time you complained about your job. I love being an American.

"Get us out of here" was the concensus, so we headed west to the larger resort town of Salinas. Now Salinas was more like it. Nice beach, boats in the harbor, and even a few bikini-clad latinas. We walked down the beach for a bit, and then our driver, through much effort, got us into the local military base to watch a sky diving exhibition. Unfortunately, the clouds were too low, and we didn't get to see any action, but we did meet a few Americans and downed a few much needed pieces of pizza.

Back in Guayaquil, we had another round of Pisco Sours after I scrubbed myself down in the shower with steel wool.

The next day, the entire crew was in town, and we were ready to pack up and head to the Galapagos.

Ecuador

Well, I'm back. And "Trip of a Lifetime" describes my trip perfectly. I have so much to tell, I'm going to break it up into parts, so enjoy. Hopefully, I can do the trip justice.

I was quite a bit nervous/anxious/excited when I arrived in Quito on the 5th. After all the waiting, the training, and the expenses, I wanted this trip to go off without a hitch. It took 21 hours to get to Quito from Anchorage. Fortunately, Scott and Karen were at the Folklore Hotel when I pulled up. Friendly faces. We giggled like schoolchildren for a bit, then headed down to Red Hot Chili Peppers for dinner. Hailed as the best fajita spot in all of Ecuador, it was on our list of places to eat. Not at all disappointing, I must say. Great food, great drinks, and they even pulled up Kalifornication on the stereo while we were there. They probably play the Chili Peppers at least once an hour there, but we thought it was funny anyways. $50 for three people to stuff themselves and down a pitcher of Pina Colada isn't a bad deal, regardless of how their fajitas were rated.

The "Founders Day" celebrations were ongoing throughout the first weekend we were there. Quito's birthday was that Saturday, so big crowds pretty much everywhere, bands on flatbeds or in buses driving around just playing music, and fireworks on Saturday night.

The travel caught up to me on Saturday, so dragging myself out of bed was somewhat of a chore. We didn't do too much that day. Scott needed eyeglasses, so we went on a hunt. We didn't get very far out the door when the Andean sky opened up and let loose a downpour that I can only describe as Biblical. Now, I'm not from the south, and have never even been there, so rain like this is an unfamiliar sight to me. I don't know if anything in the US could match this, but what I do know is that for about an hour, the streets of Quito were turned into rivers and Scott, Karen, and I were stuck hanging out under sidestreet awnings just to stay somewhat dry. Great stuff! When the rain lightened up a bit, we walked down to the SuperMaxi (grocery store) with no luck on the eyeglasses. We grabbed a cab that took us to the Mall El Jardin, a modern mall with all the amenities of a North American mall except English. Again, no luck, so we went back to the Folklore without new glasses for Scott, but still having had a fun day. Marty and Erin arrived later that night, and we watched the fireworks display while a little schnauzer yapped from the top of a house across the street. This isn't exactly a great picture of him, but you get the idea.

The next day, Scott was laid up all day from still unknown reasons. I think it was the beans he had at KFC on Saturday, but it could've been the water at the Folklore I used to rinse out his wine glass. In any case, he was out for the day tour, so Marty, Erin, Karen, and I went about the town with our guide Umberto, who spoke very little English. There's a hill called El Panecillo in the middle of Quito with a 45 meter tall statue of a woman at its peak. We all thought this was the Virgin Mary, but a bronze placard on the statue says "this is the woman from Revelations 12."

From El Panecillo, we went to Mitad Del Mundo, or the Center of the Earth, the Equator. There's a monument marking the equator surrounded by tourist shops and such, but as it turns out, when GPS was invented, they realized they were just a few yards off, so this monument is actually NOT on the equator. We went over to the actual Equator, where Marty went through an interactive tour that shows a few wierd phenomenon only found on the Equator. The rest of us didn't think it'd be all that interesting, so we skipped. Much to my regret. But I went back later, so I'll explain all that cool science stuff later on.

We finished the day up with a trip to an Inca ruins site, then to the Pululahua crater.

Driving around Quito was a pretty sobering experience in some ways. The stink of diesel fumes combined with the garbage we saw pretty much everywhere was enough for a bit of nausia every now and then, and the street vendors at every stoplight were a not-so-subtle reminder of how poor most people in Ecuador are relative to those of us in the West. On our way to Pululahua, we drove past a cafe that had rotisserie guinea pig out front. Guinea Pig. There were more than enough moments to remind me of how blessed my life really is.

Tomorrow I'll tell you about our time in Guayaquil.

Quito

I´ve arrived in Quito! The trip was long (21 hours total) and I sat next to a guy to Seattle who seemed to want to cuddle, but other than that it went off without a hitch. The stop in LAX was actually kind of nice. I had a chance to stretch my legs out for a few hours, get some reading done, and have a few brews. In order to get over to New Mexico for Christmas on my way home, I basically just purchased three round trip tickets with LAX as my centerpoint. It was the cheapest way to go and the only downside is long layovers there and I´ll have to pick my bags up and check them back in three times. Not a problem.

I´ve been looking forward to this trip for nearly a year and it´s finally here. This time next week, we´ll be in Galapagos. We´ll be touring Quito and Guayaquil until then, hoping and praying that no one gets mugged! Not to be too negative, but apparently it happens alot down here. Don´t worry - we´ll take all the right precautions! We´re staying at a B&B here in Quito, and it´s not exactly... ummm... well, Scott called it ¨Spartan Living¨and I think that sums it up. It´s clean and cheap, though, so I´m not complaining. And they offer tours, too, so I´m planning on taking advantage of that.

more to follow...