After Baños we were ready for some quality beach time, so we headed out to the coast. After a 10 hour overnight bus ride from Baños, we arrived in a town called La Libertad. We then had to get a taxi out to the beachside city of Salinas where we thought we'd start our coastal journey. However, when we got there it was 6am and no hostels/hotels were open, and the ones we saw looked way out of our price range anyway. It just seemed like too much of a resort town where rich locals or tourists would go, so we decided to jump on a bus and head further north to Montañita.
Montañita is a small coastal town on the Ruta del Sol (Route of the Sun) and is a tourist mecca for surfing, partying and chilling out on the beach. We walked around a few hostels and eventually chose one that was right across from the beach. The only thing separating us from the water was the sea wall, so it was a great view from the balcony.
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| View from our hostel |
We were only there for 2 nights during the week so we didn't see any of the craziness that we hear happens on the weekends, but the beach was still pretty packed during the day. It was a really nice beach with soft sand and beautiful warm water, and a shitload of optimistic surfers waiting for a wave. Apparently it was the wrong time of year for good surf, but that didn't deter people. And although it's probably the most touristy place on the coast, we still managed to find some good, cheap local places to eat - $1.50 for a 2 course lunch and juice, and $5 for dinner. It really isn't hard to escape the over-priced tourist restaurants if you try. So after only a couple of days chilling in Montañita we decided to keep heading north to the next place.
That next stop was a small fishing village called Puerto López, which is one of the main spots to go whale watching between mid-June to October. That was all we really knew about the place, so we found a hostel and figured we'd find a tour for the next day. As it turned out, the hostel either owned or worked in conjunction with a tour agency around the block, so we got a discount for the whale watching tour. It was only $15 each which seemed to be a pretty good deal, so we booked for the second day. We asked the girl how likely it was that we'd see whales and she assured us it was 100%, but she wouldn't agree to give us our money back if we didn't see any. What a surprise. The weather wasn't great and there was a bit of a swell, so when we got to the whale watching 'spot' and turned the engine off, we were rolling around a bit. There were other boats out there too, just sitting and waiting to spot a whale. So we sat, and we waited. And waited. For about an hour (well, it felt like that long, but was probably much less), until someone yelled out and then we were off on the chase. It was crazy, every time someone spotted a whale we'd go charging off after it so we could get as close as possible. At home there would be strict rules about how many hundreds of meters away you had to stay to give the whales space, but no such rules exist in Ecuador. The first couple of times I only saw the spray of water from the blowhole, but then eventually we kept spotting their backs as they'd breach the surface.
Of course the one time a whale actually jumped high out of the water we were facing the wrong way and missed it. Bugger. It was also impossible to get a good shot when we were rolling around over big waves, but at least we got to see quite a few whales. Lucky, or that poor girl would have had us demanding our money back. And Kurt wouldn't have taken no for an answer. Again, I was surprised that I didn't get seasick due to the rough conditions, but some other people weren't so lucky. This time it was two guys who spent the entire time hanging over the back spewing their rings out. I don't think they saw a single whale. Money well spent boys.
Puerto López is a very chilled out village, so apart from the whale watching we just wandered around town and up and down the beach. An Aussie guy we'd met the first time in Quito, Paul, was doing the Ruta del Sol from the other direction, so we figured we'd cross paths somewhere along the way. We ended up catching up with him on our third day in Puerto López, but the funniest thing was that he was actually staying in the same hostel as us. Funny how that happens. We were going to have some beers in the arvo, but it was a Sunday so that wasn't going to be possible as it's illegal to sell alcohol on Sundays in Ecuador. Apparently it's because the locals get so fucked up they don't turn up to work on Monday. There's nothing to stop people buying up large on Saturday though, but we hadn't thought of that ourselves. However, not ones to give up so easy we thought we'd try our hand at buying some illicit booze from some random corner store, and to our surprise it couldn't have been easier. The little old lady up the street didn't even hesitate in selling us two bottles of vodka, for only $7.50 each. Not as cheap as other countries, but still a bargain. In the end, we actually found a place on the beach that would sell us beer anyway, so we started off down there drinking cold beer watching the sun go down, observing a crazy man methodically sweep the beach with his metal detector. Then we retired to the rooftop at our hostel and cracked open the vodka. You can't beat a good old Sunday session. We were actually going to leave town that Sunday, but we delayed it a day so we could catch up with Paul. But the next day was time to leave, so we jumped on a bus north again.
After about 5 hours we arrived in Canoa, which is another chilled out fishing village. It's also popular with travellers, but thankfully isn't over-run like Montañita. Yet. It was getting dark when we got there, so after wandering around for a while trying in vain to find a place Paul recommended to us, we found an awesome looking place right on the beach at the end of the street, made out of bamboo. We figured we'd look for the other place in the morning, which we did. It was a bit further along the beachfront street than we'd looked the previous night, and when we found it we knew why Paul had recommended it to us. It's called Coco Loco and is another big bamboo building, and dorm beds were only $6. It doesn't get much cheaper than that so we moved our stuff over.
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| Coco Loco - our home away from home in Canoa |
It's run by an American woman and her Mexican husband, and they make everyone feel welcome. It felt like home after only a couple of days. We had initially thought we'd stay in Canoa and do Spanish lessons, but after a few days we didn't think it was really the place to stay for a month. It was a good place to chill out, but there really wasn't anything to do. We still really loved the place and stayed for a week, just relaxing and doing basically fuck all.
On our 5th or 6th night we were talking and drinking with a Swiss couple, but it wasn't until the next night that we realised we hadn't exchanged names. It's funny, but that happens all the time. The usual questions like what's your name, what do you do etc just aren't that important when you're travelling and get talking to strangers. Well, at least not until the second day/night. We eventually introduced ourselves, and spent the next night drinking and playing poker with Anna and Aaron and another couple of people. Kurt and Aaron were the last ones still battling it out, and eventually finished up at about 5am. Neither of them could really be assed playing on, but they wouldn't give up either, on principle. Anna and Aaron were travelling around South America in their kombi they'd bought in Chile and were also heading north, so Kurt asked if they'd mind giving us a lift to the next beach. They said they were going to ask us if we wanted to go with them anyway, so it all worked out well. We were looking forward to travelling up the coast with them in their faithful kombi 'Pepe'.
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| Anna and Aaron's faithful kombi 'Pepe' |
After backtracking to a nearby town town to get cash out and stock up on supplies, we drove about 200km north to a sleepy fishing village called Mompiche. While it's still low-key and undeveloped compared to all the other coastal hot spots, it's slowly growing in popularity with tourists. It's probably one of the most scenically unique locations along the coast, as there is a thick layer of protective rainforest between the highway and the village. This makes it feel quite remote from anywhere, so it's the perfect place to escape from it all.
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| View of Mompiche from the top of our hostel |
When we arrived it was getting dark so we pulled up and Anna ran up and checked out a couple of hostels. She found one that would let us drive Pepe inside the gate where it would be secure and they could sleep in the van. We were actually trying to find a specific hostel as Kurt and I had met an Argentinian guy in Quito a few weeks before who owned a hostel there, and he told us to stay there if we went. But it was too dark so we just stayed at the place Anna found. We had a few beers at this little bar right by the beach, which was basically a hut, then went back to the hostel. And who appears at the top of the stairs but Martin, the Argentinian guy. Turns out we'd found his hostel after all. The next day he told us that we wouldn't be paying for our room, and Anna and Aaron could stay for free too. Sweet.
Even though it was the time of year when it's generally cloudy and cooler than the high season, it was still plenty warm enough for us and we ended up spending 6 nights there. It was a great place to chill out and eat cheap, good seafood, and explore. It was a small village but one thing we noticed and really liked were the way the houses were all built out of bamboo, and were very open. Only the bedrooms had windows, with the rest of the house being open to the cool sea breeze. Perfect.
There was actually a surprising amount of things to do and see in Mompiche. We walked out to Playa Negra, a beautiful black sand beach that is sadly being reduced in size as they are mining the sand which is rich in titanium. We've been to a black sand beach in New Zealand, but this sand was unlike anything else. It was so fine and soft it felt like silk when we'd rub our sand covered feet together. Incredible.
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| Playa Negra |
We also went across to Portete Island, accessible only by small boat, which used to be a well-kept secret but is now well-known amongst locals and travellers. And unfortunately there's now a huge ugly eyesore on the hillside in the form of an all-inclusive resort complex. The rest of the island is pretty tranquil and unspoilt though, with miles and miles of sandy beach and thousands of bright orange crabs scuttling all over the show. Apart from some food and arts/craft stalls, there are no other services on the island. We also walked along the beach back in Mompiche and up to the headland where a small local cemetery is located, and it was a beautiful view back along the beach. A very calm, peaceful place.
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| Portete Island |
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| View from the cemetery |
However, our most unsuccessful outing was to try and spot monkeys in the forest area just a short walk from the beach. We'd been told by a German guy that once we reached the forest it was only about a 1km walk and to look out for a big tree. Thanks for narrowing it down mate, it's a forest and there are lots of big trees. We figured we'd just keep walking and hopefully find, or at least hear, the monkeys, but it wasn't the easiest walk. It started out muddy and slippery then we had to constantly wade through a river and over slippery rocks. Not the easiest terrain in jandals/thongs, especially when Kurt's kept blowing out every 2 minutes. It was also pissing down for a while, but that was actually quite nice. But after about an hour of walking we figured there would be no monkey watching that day, so we headed back.
After 6 nights in Mompiche we made the long drive back to Quito, which took us about 9 hours. Pepe needed an oil and filter change along the way, but did well to get us back over the Andes and to the cold heights of the capital. We'd had a great 3 weeks cruising up the Ecuadorian coast, eating good food and drinking plenty and meeting great people. Thanks to Anna, Aaron and Pepe for letting us travel with them - hopefully we'll meet up again soon.
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