Montanita

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We decided as we were never going to see the volcano in Baños in all its glowing glory we would dash off on Thursday night to Montanita. After a very nice meal we caught a night bus at 11.30 pm and started the 7 hour journey to Guayaquil to change for Montanita which is on the Pacific Coast. Within about 10 minutes it was clear my lovely meal wasn't all that it seemed and I got really sick. As the guard on the bus was a complete arse he wouldn't let me use the toilet so I spent the entire night leaning out of the window every half hour to an hour and being sick!

When we got Guayaquil we got on another bus. I'd drank a little coke to try and settle my stomach but that made a repeat appearance out of another bus window in the middle of rush hour traffic! Not my finest hour.

3 hours later and some bumpy roads (I recommend sports bras for any girls considering bus travel around Ecuador!) we arrived in the surfy seaside town of Montanita. The sun was shining and we checked into a fairly low rent place in the centre of the town (the pics make it look alot nicer than it was!) Its definitely a party town! On our second night the music from all the bars was still going at 5 am. For the 3rd and 4th night we were there we decided to move to a hostel called Casa Del Sol outside of the main street in Montanita at the other end of the beach. It was really nice there and the only tricky thing was walking back after dinner along a pitch dark road. Mike and I didn´t have a torch the first night and were convinced we were going to get mugged (being the obvious gringos we are!) As we neared the turn off for our hostel we were surprised by a large shadowy figure too big to be a dog or a cat, turns out it was a bull! Walking around Montanita at about midnight minding its own business. The next day aforementioned bull was hanging out on the beach - very surreal.

We decided to leave Montanita in the end lovely sunshine lasted our first afternoon and dissolved into rain and cloud from then and there are lot of other places we really want to see. So its onwards to Guayaquil and then hopefully across the border to Peru.

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Photos

Hotel Montanita
Looks better in the photo than it was in reality

Hotel Montanita Terrace View
On another gloomy morning.

Hotel Montanita´s Dodgy Electrics
Isn´t it dangerous to mix water and electricity?

Montanitan Parrots
Chatting about the weather as usual.

Casa del Sol
Our second hostal, in north Montanita