Day 50: Travel day to South America (Guayaquil)

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We had a pretty reasonable timed flight this am – 11.40am which meant we had to organise a 9am transfer to the airport. We were up at 7.30, packed up and had breakie and went and visited my pharmacist Peter for his left over antibiotics as he is heading home and they will expire in a few months. Just in case we need them in the next 6 weeks! 😊 We had a bit of a sad goodbye with Peter and John who had got up and come downstairs to see us off and say bye! Both of who we had been travelling with for a month now. John is from Melbourne so we will catch up with him for sure when we are all back in Aus which will be good. Our transfer never arrived so at 9.10 John flagged us down the most pimped out taxi we have ever seen! The bass was blasting out tunes and vibrating it was so loud! They guy said we could get there for what our transfer was going to charge! What an experience! I thought for sure we were gonna die on this car journey! All 4 windows were rolled fully down on the highway and the music was so loud my whole body was vibrating! I looked a fright by the time we arrived at the airport – kind of like I had been electrocuted 10x over! He flew down the highway only occasionally stopping for speed bumps in residential areas – maybe 50% of them, and very sudden brakes to avoids crashes! Whew it was a relief when we arrived safely at the airport.

We boarded our flight – TAME airlines and were impressed with them! We didnt know we were being fed but it was over lunch time so we were hungry and it was a pretty basic but nice chicken salad with some fruit on the side. We both caught up on some reading and I burned it through the second book fo the clifton chronicles finally! It was only a short 2 hour flight and I am so thankful we are done with long bus trips now! Planes are so much better and I can read!! As we got off the plane the air hostess told us that they had run out of custom forms and we would need to get some more from inside. There were none inside so we asked this man and he bought us a very small form very unlike anyone elses! We were a bit dubious but filled it out and somehow managed to get through all customs without a problem encountering the loveliest customs lady ever despite the fact that she was clearly laughing at our attempts of Spanish!!

We flagged down a cab and paid $5 to our hotel – Hotel Jeshua. We were looking forward to it cos it had amazing reviews and was $40 a night. When we arrived unfortunately he told us that they had had a problem with our room in the bathroom and we were unable to stay there! We were disappointed but he was really good and had oorganised us to stay in another nice hostel for the same price that was actually closer to the city and the river. He was also paying our taxi to get us out there. We arrived at the new hostel which didnt seem too bad until the lady said “ah we have had a problem with your room! The light in the bathroom is broken so you can stay in a twin room with a light or a double room with no bathroom light!” We took the double room and Ben ingeniously attached our bedside lamp up in the bathroom and dah-dah our whole bathroom was super lit up! He's a keeper! 😊

We scoped out a place for dinner and a place that sold actual coffee and headed out on our way to explore Guayaquil. We wandered down to the river front which was nice except it was so so muggy and grey it could have been prettier! We looked at the river and the current was going so incredibly fast to the right that the bits of grass in it were flying by! We saw a hill at the end that was full of multi-coloured housing and thought it was what our hostel lady said was the spanish quarters, so we headed in that direction. Part way there I was crippled by instantaneous hunger that needed to be cured that instant so we desperately tried to find food! We found a yoghurt smoothie which was only average but did supress my hunger for a while! Whew! Crisis averted! We started making our way up the numbered 444 steps to the lighthouse at the top of the hill. It was really pretty although pretty rundown. There were little kids everywhere running and playing around and they were so so cute! Once we got to the top it was a pretty awesome view. We took some snaps, then went to the top of the lighthouse for an even better 360deg view of the small city! After about half an hour up there we wandered down to the waterfront again and stumbled across the coffee place we thought we were going to find in the direction we had just come from! But no here it was! I had a nice chai latte and Ben had a good lattee also. They had these amazing looking cake slices for only $1.95 which was a bargain but we decided dinner prob wasnt far off as I was edging closer and closer to starvation! After our coffee we stumbled across a hairdressers and Ben has been complaining about his hair for a few weeks now so new continent – new haircut! As you have probably gathered our spanish is not great at all so we held our breath and hoped it wouldnt all be shaved off! Thankfully with no instruction it was done the way he wanted it and only $10!

We then jumped in a cab to where we thought our spanish dinner choice was. After walking a few blocks we were no closer to finding dinner so we went into a pretty flash looking hotel, used their toilets and asked the lady at reception where somewhere good to eat was. She helped us out and told us the spanish place we were looking for was closed on sundays. I think she thought we were guests of the hotel cos she was gonna ring us a taxi etc! We gave her a $2 tip and left with a piece of paper with the name of her bbq dinner recommendation which was apparently 5 mins taxi away. We got into a cab and showed him her instructions and he dropped us off outside the bbq restaurant! Our waiter literally did NOT speak a word on english at all! And the menu had not a word of english either! I ordered what I am sure was still water – agua sin gas, but got sparkling and ben got his coke. We had no idea what we were ordering at all and looked around and saw tables with sizzling hot plates of a lot of meat on them. We started using my spanish translation app which proved absolutely usless in this instant and only made out one which was maybe thin meat and one which was pork. We decided to get Mixto carne y pollo which we translated was mixed meats with chicken for dos personas (2 people!) Perfect we thought. Ah no...it arrived and it was the largest pile of meat I have ever seen. No vegies, salad or anything! We started off ok with the chicken and beef which was actually nice. We then tried a black turd like sausage which was horrific (so ben says) and he put in his mouth this rubbery intestine looking thing and I thought he was gonna vomit on the plate. We smelt another which I think was liver and then finally ended with pork chops which were nice, It was hilarious! We have no idea what was on our plate but majority of it did not look, taste of smell good! A quite amusing dinner experience!



We jumped in a cab home at about 8.30 and started packing up and catching up on some blogs which we always seem to be behind in now! Early start in the am – 6.45am pick up to Galapogas Islands!! Whoop whoop!!

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Photos

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the waterfront

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the spanish quarter

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climbing the 444 steps

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almost there!

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made it!