On (and Off) the Road Again

Chris and I survived one birthday extravaganza in Mancora, Peru, and are gearing up for another one this Saturday in Guayaquil, Ecuador. I’m sorry I didn’t check in on the blog last week, but it was time to do nothing on a beach and I didn’t have much to write about anyway.

If you like dirty, sleepy surfer towns with good food and obnoxious discos every night of the week, then Mancora is for you. It’s a stop on the surfer pilgrimage down the Pan-American Highway. The water isn’t too cold and they have long continuous breaks, and according to Chris, lots and lots of fish in the water. I was still nursing my cut and bruised shins from the Inca Trail and a trip in third world ocean didn’t seem like the most hygienic step towards recovery. But it looked pretty.

We stayed across from the beach at a place called Casa Blanca and we shared our room with an assortment of biting insects, crickets, and possibly rats on the roof. Yuck. Plus we were near the discos so I got to hear ‘Hips Don’t Lie’ by Shakira at least four times a night, usually ending around 2AM. But it was cheap and we are seriously trying to save money right now. During the day, we drank $3 650ml beers and ate ceviche and fried calamari and shrimp on the beach. The seafood, from the shellfish to the tuna, was truly delicious in Mancora. And I tried to hide from the sun, because it is so strong the closer you get to the Equator. On my birthday, we met up with a couple we’d met earlier in the day from Portland, Oregon and ended the night on the beach with a fire and an assortment of international hippies and local kids. It was a good 29th celebration.

Yesterday, Chris and I took a stupidly long bus ride to Guayaquil. From here, we hope to catch a flight to the Galapagos on Sunday for an eight day cruise. That is our big money sucker, so we are currently staying in a hotel for $12.50 a night (I splurged an extra $1.50 for an air conditioner). I remember at the beginning of the trip telling Chris that I could never stay in a room filled with bugs and containing no hot water. Apparently, my standards have dropped a bit.

We have a reservation for our Galapagos trip but we still have not been able to transfer money to the travel agent to pay. They can’t accept credit cards and we need to deposit the money into an account. It has taken too many days with bank holds and I am getting nervous. But Chris just transferred a bulk of the money over, so hopefully it all works out.

But back to the miserable bus trip; it was miserable. It took us 2 hours to get through the border crossings between Peru and Ecuador. On the Peru side, we waited in line for 45 minutes for one guy to stamp everyone out on their exit card. Then, we had to go into another room and another line to get another guy to stamp our passport, because one person couldn’t possibly do both jobs. I have no idea why it took so long, because the only thing I was asked was how I pronounce my middle name (it’s Michele, not Micheley). In Ecuador, after about 20 minutes in line, I was asked how to pronounce my last name and what cities I planned to visit and then given a thumbs up by one of the guards. Good thing I chose wisely.

Between border crossings and general South American lateness, I think our bus trip took about 11 hours and we originally thought it would take about 5. Our next trip to another country (Colombia) is going to be via air, so that should make things easier.

So hello Ecuador. Chris and I went to a new boardwalk to have dinner last night and spent too much money on dinner. We had read that crab were must in this town, so for $12.99 (they use the US dollar in Ecuador) we had all you can drink beers, crab soup, crab rice, fried banana chips, some sort of weird pumpkin/raisin crab stuffed crab head, and BUCKETS of steamed crabs. They kept bringing buckets of the sad little things covered in mud and dirt. I should have known better as I usually receive shrimp with the heads and legs down here and mussels and clams with a mouthful of sand and fish with the heads and bones. Usually, when I have crab, I am just given the legs. We weren’t sure what to do with the head and when I busted it open with my mallet, it just looked like a big grey dirty mess, so I didn’t touch it again. The legs were tasty, but too much work for me, and I don’t like being given a whole animal to pick apart and de-dirt and eat. I like my animal to not resemble an animal, just a pile of meat.

Today, we are going to walk around the city. Guayaquil is the largest city in Ecuador and we already found the cinema so hopefully we can see the new Indiana Jones. On the buses, they always show these horrible bootlegs and yesterday, we got the new Indiana Jones in Spanish and filmed by camcorder in a theatre. We tried to ignore it and really want to see the film in English and not by someone’s crappy handheld. There is also an IMAX and if they have something in English, I would like to see that as well.

If we disappear for a bit, we are sailing through the Galapagos cavorting with sea lions and iguanas and giant turtles. So wish us luck.