Ruta del Sol

After spending about 1 month in the Andes, Brandon and I decided it would be a good idea to get our pale selves back into the sun before we headed off to the Galapagos Islands. We didn't want to be nursing sunburns instead of enjoying the wildlife.

Long story short, we found ourselves on the "Ruta del Sol" on the coast of Ecuador. Turns out, the "Ruta del Sol", or route of the sun, in english, isn't so sunny until the middle of December when the rainy season ends. We were there just before the sunny season was supposed to start.

After a suicide bus ride from the jungle (about 24 hours on 2 buses) we plopped down in the north, in a tourist town called Atacames. While it wasn't exactly our speed (a bit full on with touts and loud, tacky beach bars lining the beach), we did enjoy being back by the ocean for the first time since we left home.

From there, we headed down to a town on a small island called Muisne. We have been using an old guide book so not everything we encounter is what we expect from our reading. Muisne was one of these incidents. As far as our book was concerned, "Muisne has a long, wide, usually empty beach backed by a few sandy little hotels and simple restaurants." Sounds charming, right?

When we arrived we figured out exactly WHY the beach tends to be empty. Muisne was one of the sketchiest places we have found ourselves. We had a hunch that there was something fishy about this town when we pulled up, but we decided to give it a chance. Sometimes first impressions of a place can be totally off.

From the very first minute we stepped foot off of the bus we were bait for the crack addicts and hustlers that run this town. We ended up paying WAY too much for the 30 second boat ride from the dock to the island because the asshole told us he would take us around to the front of the island where the hostels were. Turns out that's impossible because there's nowhere to dock on the other side of the island and there's some substantial surf which makes it impossible for a beach landing. But of course they guy doesn't fess up to this until we're halfway across the channel and we've already agreed to a price.

After our pleasant little boat experience, we start the 1 mile walk to the other side of the island where we could find one of the "sandy little hotels." While walking we were lucky enough to run into "Cracky Crackerson" as I'd like to call this guy. He had dreadlocks, smelled like he hadn't been introduced to the concept of a shower, was missing a number of teeth, and had a permanent tan from sleeping outside.

Brandon was nice enough to respond to the guy's "Buenas dias" and then we found we were blessed with "Cracky's" company for the remainder of the walk to the other side of the island. Long after we stopped responding to his questions and attempts at pointing us in the direction of a "good" hotel he informed me that it was only appropriate that I give him a tip for his services (for what...following us around with a foul odor?). I just ignored "Cracky" and we headed down the beach (which really was deserted) to find a place to stay. The place looked like it used to be a popular tourist hangout, but had fallen off the map and hadn't been touched for years.

Brandon and I checked out one hostel and decided to get the heck out of dodge. This place was a hole. We hopped on a ferry back to the mainland (paid the appropriate rate) and caught a bus south. Three buses, a night in a fishing town called Perdernales, and a day and a half later, we ended up in a cool surf town called Canoa.

From the get-go, Canoa had a much more mellow, welcoming vibe. Get this, in our first walk around Canoa we ran into an American who lives in Ecuador. When we told him we had just come from Muisne his reaction was, "You shouldn't have been there in the first place!" Apparantly, our feeling that the town was sketch was spot on. Turns out robbing and mugging of tourists happen regularly AND tourists have been murdered there in recent years.

After confirming that our suspicions of Muisne were right we headed for a place to stay. While looking around, we ran into a friendly, loud American named Annie. She pointed us in the direction of a clean, mellow place to stay with plenty of hammocks...AND the price was right.

After we settled in, we ended up chatting with Annie for quite some time. She was quite a character! Get this, she's been cycling around the world for 20 years. She rides a mountain bike and camps in order to make her money go as far as possible. She hails from Miami, Florida where she varnishes boats and crews for boat deliveries from time to time. As you can guess, she and Brandon had plenty to talk about.

Like us, she works for a few months and then takes off for an extended amount of time. She's been all over and has tons of great stories from her travels.

One thing I've always been curious about is what travelers did for money before banks were automated and ATM's were worldwide. I asked her what she used to do for money before the invention of the ATM. Turns out, she would carry all of her money (thousands of dollars) in the soles of her shoes. I thought this was an ingenious idea, but turns out some theives knew about this tricky little hiding place and she had had her shoes stolen once.

We ended up hanging with Annie for a few days and when we decided to leave the sun FINALLY made an appearance on the Ecuadoran coast.

As we meandered down to the south the sun would come and go and we were able to enjoy a few days in Puerto Lopez and the backpacker town of Montañita. Then, finally, it was time for us to get to Guayaquil to catch our plane to the Galapagos.