Ecuador

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Manta - 11/28/2014 - Day 5

After a good breakfast at the hostel, we took off for lower altitudes. The hostel took us by truck to Zumbahua for a very reasonable fee of $6. A little girl in a pink hat and braids was our traveling companion. She liked to play peek-a-boo. We passed a few herds of sheep on the side of the road. Zumbahua didn't have an actual bus depot. .We just waited for the bus on the side of the road. We are headed to Quevedo, then on to Manta. A few men in trucks wanted to drive us to Quevedo but we said we would wait for the bus. The bus was only $5 total, for a three hour ride. Local ladies got on the bus along the way. Many had babies strapped to their backs. All wore green hats (the color designates the area where they live), always a skirt, a colorful shawl, and knee-high socks, usually white.



We have taken the route from Latacunga to Quevedo in two parts. Here is what Lonely Planet says about this route:

"The 110km bus ride from Latacunga to Quevedo is one of the least traveled and most spectacular bus routes joining the highlands with the western lowlands. The bus climbs to Zumbahua at 3500m, and then plunges down to Quevedo at only 150m above sea level, losing an average of 30m of altitude per kilometer."

The scenery was really amazing, photos cannot do it justice. We traveled through areas of no habitation, past mountains covered with trees and foliage, through a couple of little towns. Houses were surrounded by flowers, some resembling azaleas. We couldn't find any of these towns on our map. We passed areas with huge ferns, almost rainforest like, then areas with crops like corn and bananas.



In Quevedo we went to the ticket counter, and a worker saw we were going to Manta. He ran us out to the bus that was just leaving. The bus was a few minutes late, otherwise we would have missed it. We bought tickets on the bus, $12 total for the 4.5 hour ride.

This part of the ride was through relatively flat countryside.



Once we got to Manta, we went to a hotel listed in Lonely Planet, Hotel Leo. The room is quite small and no windows, but it is clean, has hot water, AC, and free Internet. Manta is a big, busy and noisy city, but we hit it just at 5:00pm rush hour. We decided to take a walk along the Malecon (path along the ocean). We found a very good restaurant, Rincon Marisco. We had delicious shrimp spaghetti and grilled tuna, both really reasonable.



We'll spend one more day here in Manta, then head down the coast.

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