my tour of south ecuador

i ended my tour of the south EC today, a few days earlier than originally planned, but it was great. thurs after my test, i left quito and at 9 pm got to portoviejo, a town with nothing of interest but is a portal to the coast. i figured that since it was already dark it would be best to get a hostal near the bus terminal, but i ended up a really creepy place...$5, a pillow that looked like it had never been washed, what appeared to be blood on the wall, a barely locking door, really noisy and creepy neighborhood, two creepy guys working there...need i go on? i barely slept. when i got up at 5 am, i thought that maybe i wasn’t as cut out for this traveling by myself thing as i thought. there was a bus leaving for guayaquil in front of my hostal at that moment, so i thought maybe it was a sign to skip the beach part of my trip and go straight to guayaquil.

when i got to guayaquil, i decided to get some good pancakes in a nice hotel since i hadn’t eaten dinner the night before. i went to the grand hotel guayaquil and ended up being seated next to the owners of the hotel. i asked if they knew of a cheap, safe hostal in the area, and told them a little about my previous night’s experience. they said they didn’t know about hostals but that i could stay at their hotel for free, and paid for both my breakfasts there too! this is a place that costs $100 a night...i had my first consistently hot shower in four months, swam in a pool with a waterfall, and watched cnn en español on cable. it was such an amazing surprise! on friday i did touristy guayaquil, the malecón 2000 which is an urban renewal project along the bay with statues, botanical gardens, markets, museums, etc. at night i went to a symphonic concert on the bay and had a drink in a bar in las peñas, an restored cute old neighborhood. although all the quiteños say that guayaquil is dangerous, its definitely possible to walk around the malecón and las peñas alone at night, which is not really the case for quito’s mariscal...

the plaza in front of guayaquil's cathedral is filled with iguanas!

the next day i went to cuenca and met two environmentalists from colorado who were planning on seeing every national park and other nature parts of ecuador in three weeks...pretty sweet. cuenca is a quaint little city, with a cute river running through it, cobblestone streets, and tons of gorgeous architecture and parks. cuenca is also famous for panama hats (they’re not from panama!). i stayed in a hip little backpackers hostal with lots of europeans. saturday night began the novena of the baby Jesus, so the churches in cuenca were having mass with a procession afterwards with all the kids in the church dressed up as part of the nativity scene. they really went all out on the costumes, even matching shoes and painted faces. besides the usual shepherds and angels, there were every kind of animal imaginable, including rabbits and elephants, and i’m almost certain i saw a pirate!

one of cuencas many beautiful churches

sunday i missed the direct bus to ingapirca, the biggest incan ruins in ecuador. the bus left 10 mins early! who has ever heard of that happening in latin america? but it actually ended up being cool because a group of siblings my age from the ecuadorian coast were in the same situation, so we took the two-bus route to ingapirca together. ingapirca was beautiful and makes me even more excited to see machu picchu someday in the near future.



hanging out with ecuadorians is always an interesting experience, and this one was no exception. carol, the only sister, was constantly asking me funny questions like “have you met hilary duff? do they sell colgate toothpaste in the u.s.? how many pairs of shoes do you own?”
the ecuadorians weren’t that impressed by ingapirca, and when we got back to cuenca, they insisted upon going to a shopping mall. they invited me, so im ashamed to say that i ate kfc for dinner...then they played video games til their bus left. haha. carlos, the oldest of the group, consistently switched from ‘usted,’ ‘tu,’ and ‘vos’ while talking to me. that’s one thing i still haven’t figured out here yet. but i really do like the use of ‘vos’ here, as well as the use of the intimate ‘usted,’ like raul’s family all uses with each other. other talking observation: i had a more difficult time understanding my new mono friends (mono means monkey, but its what the people from the mountains call the people from the coast) because monos mush all their words together, but i really love the way they talk. sometimes i wish that i would’ve studied in guayaquil rather than quito, so i’d leave with a tiny bit of that accent...

other cool thing about cuenca: the cañari, an indigenous group in this area, have such beautiful clothing. the women’s skirts are shorter (to the knee) and they wear really tall colorful socks, and all their clothing (shawls, belts, hair wraps, etc) is different colors...bright pinks and blues, lime greens and orange! it totally clashes but somehow looks wonderful. and all their clothes is embroidered with tie-die thread. they also wear flat hats with tie-die feathers and fuzzy balls on them. its awesome!

by sunday night, though i’d had a great time seeing the south, decided i’d been traveling long enough, and took a night bus back to quito. this way i’ll have more time this week to say bye to everyone and pack my stuff. home in 5 days, craziness!

p.s. all my latest photos are here.