Playas de Villamil
So we've been back from Ecuador for...almost a month. Because it's been so long, I think I've forgotten a lot, so think of this as highlights from our trip.
Why did we go to Ecuador? We knew we were going to spend Christmas alone in Colombia, so we decided to go visit our friends in Ecuador for the New Year. We also thought we might as well check out another country while we're down here!
Our friends Kaley and Aaron are having a similar Latin American adventure, getting some travel out of the way before they have kids. They run a travel website called liveinsouthamerica.com, and are just bumming around South and Central America! They are currently in Ecuador for a few more weeks, then they're briefly vacationing in Costa Rica, then are moving on to Nicaragua. If that sounds as cool to you as it does to me, check out their website!
Our trip:
We started in Guayaquil, which is a 4 hour bus ride from Cuenca, where our friends live. Why did we do this? Because the flights into Guayaquil were cheaper, and the 4 hour bus was only like $8 a person. *Note* I would recommend looking into this for anyone flying to Cuenca...but maybe just for one-way. It was pretty grueling sitting through that bus trip twice.
Weeks before our trip, we were closely watching Cuenca's weather, because, well, I get cold when the temperature drops into the 80s here. Oh, Cartagena, how you've ruined me!
One cloudy day before our trip, I compared Cartagena to Cuenca. Cartagena had 75% humidity, 7 mph winds, and it was raining. We clocked in at 83 degrees F. I looked at Cuenca, which also had 75% humidity, 6 mph winds, and a 40% chance of rain. And it was 63 degrees F. My heart dropped. Same exact weather conditions, but 20 degrees less?! What a difference elevation can make.
So we packed coats and sweaters (but, of course, I forgot my thick coat at home. D'oh!) and braced ourselves for the "terrible" weather. We were grateful for the layers during our short layover in Bogota (which was also cold!), but we were shocked when we got off the plane in Guayaquil. Why, it almost feels like Cartagena here! In our extensive research of Ecuador's weather conditions, we neglected to check out our first stop. But hey, I would ALWAYS rather be surprised by heat than by cold. So I was happy.
Our wonderful friends were kind enough to make the 4 hour bus trip and meet us in Guayaquil. After our excited hellos, we walked from the airport to the bus station, a relatively short distance away.
We decided to get lunch before our bus ride to our next destination. As we walked into the food court, I heard James say "look, Ariel, Pizza Hut!". I stopped in my tracks, mesmerized by the beautiful red and black sign. I almost cried in that moment. Difference #1 between Cartagena and Ecuador: More American food chains.
We got lunch, passing over the Ecuadorian food for some sweet, sweet, pizza. Silly gringos. And yes, it was delicious.
After lunch, we caught a bus to our next destination, Playas de Villamil, or just "Playas" to the Ecuadorians. Yes, that is the word for beaches...I'm sure it gets very confusing when speaking of other playas. Our bus ride was about an hour and a half, 90% of which Kaley and I spent gabbing over the backs of the seats. The other 10% I spent listening in awe to the great music blasting from the speakers. Difference #2: Ecuador has way better Spanish music, like the stuff we used to listen to in California. They also had more American music, but I was just pretty happy with my Reggaeton.
As we were driving through and out of Guayaquil, James and I commented how different it looked from Cartagena. In a few words...less ghetto. It seemed like there were fewer hovels and the hovels that we did spot were clean and well taken care of. Difference #3: sooo much cleaner than Cartagena. Even the most humble abodes were clean, free from trash in the yard, and well kept. This is my main problem with Colombia. I understand that there is severe poverty...but that doesn't mean that you need to have trash all over your yard. Take some pride in what you do own and keep a clean place.
We got to Playas and Kaley and I jumped into a tuk-tuk to get to the hotel. I was impressed with how kind the tuk-tuk driver was, but thought it might just be a fluke (get it?). We arrived where Aaron had told the driver to stop, and waited for the boys with some anxiety, as Kaley didn't have our AirBnB address and we could've just been dropped on the other side of the city. Now that would have made a good blog post. Luckily, we were in the right spot, and Aaron led us to our AirBnB a couple of doors down.
Cute little tuk-tuk!
The house we stayed in was so. cute. It was ALL bamboo...no, not other materials covered with bamboo, straight up bamboo everywhere you turned. So. cute. Unfortunately, as we found out over the next two nights, bamboo is the least sound-proof material ever. But despite the noisy neighbors, rooster duels, and construction, we enjoyed our stay.
Innit cute?
We arrived in the afternoon, so we decided to go check out the beach. James opted for a nap, because he was recovering from the worst illness he's had since I've known him. Seriously, we think he got food poisoning on Christmas Day (just when you want it) and we left for Ecuador on the 27th. Luckily, he was feeling good enough to fly by then, but he was still not well. Aaron, Kaley and I went down to the beach and chatted until sunset. The beach was sunny, lovely, clean, but a little windy for my taste.
The next day, we all prepared for a full day at the beach. James haggled us a cabana (he's a good guy to have around) and we settled into our terribly uncomfortable beach chairs...but the bonus hammock made up for them. Unfortunately, the sun never came out that day, so we stayed under the cabana and just chatted. We watched the fishermen's balsa wood rafts (we think) almost get sucked out to sea...we watched a kid in an outrageous speedo strut his stuff...and we witnessed what can only be called a mass fish suicide. Actually, we have no idea what caused all the dead fish. We just started noticing people flinging fish up to the hundreds of surrounding birds and thought they were expert fish catchers. Then we went down to the water's edge and noticed that there were hundreds of dead fish everywhere. As we waded into the water, our legs were smacked by the hordes of dead fish. Needless to say, none of us got in the water after that. It was one of the strangest things I've ever experienced. If anyone can let me know why hundreds of dead fish wash up at Playas after 3 PM, I would be delighted to hear what you have to say.
Side story: James climbed up onto this raft, and the owner of our cabana immediately rushed over to volunteer to take his picture, despite the fact that James was there with 3 other people who could have taken his picture. So James called me over, handed the guy his phone, and we posed. The guy originally pointed the phone to a place nowhere near us. Then he turned it towards us but facing the wrong way. Then he had it upside down, before finally figuring out how to actually take the picture. It was hilarious, and Aaron was able to get a photo of the 10 minute long photo shoot.
James and I noticed that there were almost no gringos in Playas. We thought this was strange because we had heard our friends talk about how many gringos retire to Ecuador and how many gringos they had in their ward at church. Plus, Ecuador uses the US dollar as its currency (p.s. dollars look super strange after you live somewhere else for a while...why are they so long?! And so green?!). So we were perplexed. And this town clearly did not often have gringos...people were openly gawking at us in the street. It was a strange thing, because we are definitely NOT a novelty in Cartagena.
After our blissful beach day (which also included a delicious trip to Carl's Jr.!!!!!) we headed back to Guayaquil the next morning. Again, we got off the bus, ate lunch (I had Pizza Hut again, but it was cold :(), and got straight on the bus to Cuenca. So we saw Guayaquil...but only a little. But I'm still counting it as one of the "places I've been". Don't judge.
The first hour of the bus ride was driving past palm farms. Then, it started to get noticeably colder quickly, as we drove into the shadow of a mountain. We headed up this mountain, into Cajas National Park. The rest of the trip was winding up, and then down again, the Andes mountains. It was cold, but I was weirdly hot (for once in my life), so it was refreshing. Going up the mountain was absolutely beautiful. I will always pick a beach view over mountain view, but I cannot deny that those mountains were breathtaking. We were often at a level with the fog (well, really, clouds), so we could just see the dense greenery on either side of the bus, and then a straight drop into cloudy nothingness. It was terrifying and so cool. There were various farms nestled in the 20 feet between the road and cliff and James saw some wild llamas (I freakin' missed them!). As we were nearing the peak of one of the mountains, we passed a little girl in a poncho, standing outside her glorified shack, holding a string with a goat on the other end of it. And all I could think was, wow, I can't even fathom how different this girl's life has been from mine. Seriously, it's unimaginable.
Three hours later as we were finally driving into Cuenca, it got *slightly* warmer, and the greens turned from dark forest green to bright, grass green. Driving into Cuenca was mind-blowing. "Cuenca is so weird!" was the anthem to our Ecuador trip. As we were driving in, it looked like we were in the Swiss Alps. The fields and the houses looked like NOTHING either of us had ever seen in South/Central America. And as we got into the city, we were even more flabbergasted. It was so beautiful. Cobblestone streets, European buildings with red tile roofs, beautifully landscaped parks and plazas. Don't get me wrong...Cartagena definitely has it's beauty. Coral walls, colonials houses paints all hues, flowered balconies...but Cuenca was...strange in how different it was (difference #4). It really looked like a little town in France or Italy. But, difference #5, it strangely had way more graffiti than Cartagena. Most of the buildings had some graffiti, but a lot of it had been turned into "street art", which means they just spray painted over the word with a picture. I'd rather have a clean building, but you gotta do what you gotta do.
Cuenca or Switzerland? Hard to tell. (It's Switzerland)
It was fairly cold (to me) while we were there. We were usually all wearing at least a light jacket. I think it was in the 60s-70s. The weirdest part to me was that it wasn't very sunny there. While we were there it was always cloudy, but if you looked up beyond the patchy sky, you could see beautiful blue sky. So it wasn't like rainy-cloudy, but just like we were constantly in the shadow of a cloud. Kind of strange, not my favorite. But when the sun was out, boy was it strong! The sun would peek through for 30 seconds and we'd be stripping off layers as quick as we could.
Difference #6: The Ecuadorian style. My first impression was that they dressed classier than Colombians...but then I just realized that they were all wearing jackets and boots, and the mystery was solved. The clothes underneath those items were the same, but a good jacket and boot can really class up a look (apparently). Difference #7, we also noticed how easy it was to understand every single thing that was being said around us. The Cuencan Spanish is BEAUTIFUL. I never had a problem understanding anyone, whereas here in the land of the Costenos, I understand 50%, at best. But they did use different words, which I thought was interesting...there are a lot of verbs that mean the same thing in Spanish (or any language), and Ecuadorians seems to use all synonyms to Colombian words. They used manejar instead of conducir (both to drive...but we use manejar more like manage). They used departamento instead of apartamento (apartment). Those are the only ones I remember now, but everywhere I looked the words were different from Cartagena's. And they used the diminutives more, -ito and ita-ing everything, which is like saying "little", or as I like to think of it, cute. "Tengo una preguntita..." "I have a little question..."
Difference #8: There were A LOT of gringos there, which I didn't love. We also heard a lot of English being thrown around. It made it feel all the more European. Cool, if you're in Europe...but I want a different culture!
Difference #9: the Ecuadorians were SO NICE. I had low expectations, because as you already know, my perception of Cartagenians is that they can be, well...cold. But I felt super welcome everywhere we went, and the Ecuadorian ladies totally fell for James' charms. I am, to this day, shocked that Colombian women don't giggle at James' every joke, because older women in America certainly do. But the Ecuadorians were like putty in his hands.
Kaley and Aaron had an amazing apartment that was less than a block from a huge park and two cathedrals (with a least two more cathedrals just one block further). Their apartment was a studio, but a huge studio that was just perfect. And it had the most amazing view of the nearest cathedral. They were kind enough to let us crash on their uber comfortable sectional, so we didn't have to pay for a hotel. Win! Plus, they cooked us delicious meals so, double win!
How 'bout that view, eh?
While in Cuenca, we checked out many a good restaurant. Difference #10: all of the food was better than anything we've eaten in Colombia. A lot of it is similar, but it's just more flavorful there. The typical Colombian plate is meat or fish, rice, "salad", and patacones, or fried plantain (like a banana) patties. The typical Ecuadorian meal was meat or fish, rice, menestra - which seems to be really soupy lentils - and patacones. We saw tons of menestra, but I didn't try it because I'm very picky and frankly, it looked pretty gross. They also had salchipapas, which is cut up salchichas (hot dogs) on top of fries. I was really surprised that's not a Colombian thing as well, because that seems right up their alley. And they sold plantains "maduro", which was really strange to me. In Colombia, to make patacones, they buy green plantains. When they are green, they are almost the consistency of a potato, so they're much easier to squish and fry. But it doesn't work when they are yellow, or maduro (ripe). Trust us, we've tried. #gringofail. I don't know what the maduro is like, but I hope it's better than what James and I tried to make at home.
Anyone for some barf on a plate? I guess it doesn't look much different than refried beans...
One of our days in Cuenca, we went up to a cathedral on top of a neighboring hill, and got crazy views of the whole valley that Cuenca is so sweetly nestled in. From there, we could see how strange all of Cuenca is (red brick buildings everywhere), which caused us to utter "Cuenca is so weird!" furthermore. This area also holds an adventure zone (naturally) which has a famous swing that pushes you out over the valley. We got in for a measly $2 each, and each took a turn on what I call a jungle swing. We were (sort of) harnessed, and then flung over a 15-20 ft drop(I'm probably exaggerating that). It was super fun, and free, after our $2 admission! We went to check out the famous swing, and decided it wasn't worth the money. You essentially sat in a patio chair and then swung out for 30 seconds. We were satisfied with the amazing view we already had, and from the free activities, so we didn't do it.
Another day, we got on a bus to go to the famous Ingapirca ruins. From what Aaron could find on the internet (which was next-to-nothing), we thought the bus ride would be 1 hour - 1 1/2. After making multiple stops to pick people up, we finally got to Ingapirca 2 1/2 hours later, to be told that our return bus would be back in less than an hour and a half. Here's the thing...James and I have been gone from the states for a looong time. We walk everywhere in Cartagena, except once a day on a mototaxi for James and a short bus ride once or twice a month if we are going somewhere far. So we are not used to being cooped up in cars. Count it, to this point in the trip, we had been on two 1 1/2 hour bus rides, then a 4 hour bus ride, then this 2 1/2 bus ride, plus countless taxi rides and our flights coming in. At this point, I honestly didn't think I could do it. I am a lover of road trips, but Colombia may have changed that for me. I really thought they would have to drag me back on the bus. I was contemplating living in the ruins of the Incan temple for the rest of my life. But I digress...
The very friendly ladies at the front desk told us we needed a guide to get in to see the ruins. We weren't super keen on that, since we only had a little over an hour at this point to see the ruins and try to cram some food in our gullets before getting on the bus back. So we walked over to the gate to try to get in and the guy told us we had to wait for a guide. Urgh! Ten minutes later, a lady comes up and promises to hustle through the tour. And she did! It was great. Honestly, I don't think we would have wanted to spend more than an hour at the ruins, but after the long bus ride and with our hungry stomachs, we needed more time to eat something substantial, stretch our legs and maybe wander around the valley. But we got our pictures, saw some cool Incan ruins, and got some snacks within our allotted time. The nice ladies told us that our bus company shouldn't have given us a round trip ticket...if we had bought a one-way ticket, we could have just hitched a ride with any of the buses in the neighboring town. So, lesson learned. If you ever go to Ingapirca, get a one-way ticket and figure it out from there. Worse comes to worst, you have to spend one night in a quaint Ecuadorian mountain town.
Kaley and Aaron, are, like us, Mormons. We were excited to go to their ward (Mormon-speak for congregation) to see how similar/different it was to ours. Aaron left an hour early and we promised to be right behind him after we got ready. But then...Kaley couldn't find her keys, and you can't get out of their apartment building without keys. After turning their apartment upside down, we realized that Aaron must have both sets of keys. He came back to rescue us, but unfortunately, we had missed the first hour Spanish sacrament meeting. By the time we got there, the second hour Sunday School was ending, so Kaley and I headed to Primary for the third hour. I met some wild kids and was graciously offered some pan de Pascua for the New Year. Pan de Pascua is actually Easter bread, but apparently they give it to you at New Years and Christmas as well. We have this in Colombia too. It's bread with raisins (but like, BIG raisins), nuts, and other things that I don't really want to spend too much time thinking about. It is not very good to my gringa taste buds, but it's a tradition. After Primary, we went to English sacrament meeting. What? Yes, they have enough gringos in their ward to have an English sacrament meeting.
New Years Eve was definitely one of the highlights of the trip. In Ecuador, they burn effigies of people or characters at midnight to get rid of the bad and make room for the new. Or, at least, that's what it used to be about...we also saw a lot of cartoon characters that I don't think anyone really had a personal grudge against (what did Woody and Buzz ever do to you :(?). The humbler effigies were a papier mache head with a stuffed cloth body. And real clothes! I'm surprised they would burn perfectly good clothes. Seems more like a wasteful American thing to me. The more elaborate, bigger effigies were all papier mache, or something similar.
We walked around at about 9 PM to see all of the effigies before they were burned. There were some amazing, intricate, large presentations. It seems like it's kind of a contest now, like Christmas lawn decorations. We saw Angry Birds, the Toy Story characters, the Colombian President, countless Ecuadorian politicians, and the Brazil soccer team that recently died in a plane crash (I thought it was in bad taste to burn them, but 1) we don't know if they actually burned them and 2) the display was very respectful and clearly mourning rather than mocking). However, our favorites were the ones of Trump. There was one display close to the apartment, with a 10 ft. tall Trump behind a wall with fake people climbing up it. They also had actual people surrounding it in costume. There was Trump, and a beauty queen, and I honestly don't know who else, but there was a cast of like 9 real people. Pretty impressive. The real gem of the evening was a super elaborate, and frankly, frightening, display of a 15 ft. Trump, with gravestones of all the Latin American countries placed before a giant American flag with a swastika in place of the stars. We walked pretty quickly away from it, just in case things got a little heated. But Kaley and Aaron's gringo friends were there for the midnight burning and said that the atmosphere was very light, so apparently we had nothing to worry about. But I was a little sickened by it, simply because it's hard to know that that is the way some other countries see America now.
A few minutes before midnight, we went out and lit small fireworks in the streets. After we ran out of those, we walked to a plaza in front of a cathedral, where they already had a huge pile of effigies burning. People would walk up and just toss theirs onto the pile. The DJ and the crowd counted down to midnight and everyone kissed their partner. Who needs Times Square? Eventually, the pile got very large and the fire was very high. At this point, boys starting jumping over it. So, naturally, Aaron and James both did it as well. The DJ and crowd were goading people to do it, and it was fun to celebrate with a crowd of happy Ecuadorians.
Our last day before heading back, we went to a spa. If you got there early in the morning, you could get in 2 for 1 and spend the whole day there. We quickly handed over our $35 per couple and headed in. This spa was amazing, although small. I would never even consider paying for even one of these luxuries at an American spa, but $17.50 for an all access pass ain't bad! We hit the steam room then headed to the mud pools. They had two outdoor mud pools...a red and a blue. Each mud was supposed to do something different (which I don't remember) and they left our skin feeling silky smooth. We would get into the warm (water) pools, smear mud (from the sides of the pool) all over our bodies, and then sit out to dry. This would have been 100% more enjoyable if it wasn't "cold" outside. I chickened out and got back in the pools early every time, but the pools in themselves were nice to soak in. After that, we went to a cave (!) for our hot-cold pool treatment. The cave was dark with candlelight and soft music. So dreamy. We hung out in the hot tubs and then all braved the cold pool. I didn't get in past my feet, but everyone else fully submerged, and regretted it instantly. The water felt like snow-melt from just that morning. It was inexplicably cold. After going back and forth a few times, we went for another steam treatment. This time, we were all placed into boxes with just our heads sticking out so the rest of our body got steam while our heads were out in the fresh air (thankfully). If we had been smarter, we definitely would have gotten a picture of the 4 floating heads, but alas, we didn't, so you'll just have to rely on your imagination. After that, we went to one of the many swimming pools on site which were also super warm. And then we did parts of the circuit a few times and just chilled in the pool until lunch time.
While in Cuenca, we also explored the nearest cathedral, a small "museum", the flower market, the artisan market, the food market, a river, and some sweet ruins that were smack in the middle of the city (with llamas!). While wandering around, we also learned difference #11, that Ecuadorians cannot dance. Let me rephrase that...they can dance, but they dance like gringos, "shuffling their feet and putting their hands in the air," as a Colombian once accurately described gringo dancing to us. I thought it was hilarious, because Colombians, specifically Costenos, are all born with terrific rhythm and amazing dancing skills. Seriously. Every single one of them can dance to salsa, champeta, vallenato, bachata, cumbia...I'm sure I'm forgetting at least 30 others. The point is, Cartagenians can dance their brains out, and look dang good doing it. Ecuadorians...not so much.
I dreaded our 4 hour bus trip home and even looked at flights from Cuenca to Guayaquil. But they were more than we wanted to spend, so we gritted our teeth and got on another bus. Unfortunately, we missed the bus we wanted to take to make sure we had plenty of time to get to and through the airport, so we had to sit in the bus station for an extra 40 minutes. And once on the bus, despite all the dramatics, we didn't even die, or lose our minds, or get permanent damage to our tailbones. But we were both hangry and generally ornery, so after a rushed meal and getting turned around on our way to the airport, we finally made it. After some super ridiculous antics at the airport (that I'm still fuming about...you've fallen from grace in my book, Avianca), we made all of our flights and hated every minute of the ride home. We finally got home after midnight (after my usually calm, collected James blew up at 3 Cartagena taxi drivers) and vowed to never go anywhere again.
The next morning, we felt better and now we look back fondly on our trip to Ecuador. Bet you didn't see that ending coming, did ya?
We loved a lot of things about Ecuador. I would definitely be willing to go and check out more of their beach towns. We don't care to live in Cuenca because it's cold, doesn't have a beach, and isn't the South American experience that we want. But we loved visiting, and I'm glad we've seen something a little different. And I'm grateful that we were able to spend part of the holidays with good friends.
The wide, clean streets of Cuenca
