Back to wandering around

After spending two days in Guayaquil I knew it was time to move on. Guayaquil is nice but it just really held no attraction for me. The problem wasn´t in making that decision, the problem was move on to where. It´s strange I´ve noticed my last few months of travelling oscilate back and forth between hanging out with great friends who I feel will be around for a lifetime and just wandering around aimlessly on my own.

My friend Robert who started this whole mess by convincing me to go to Colombia the first time sent me an e-mail. He was heading to Lima and wanted to meet up. I thought about it. 20 hour bus ride from Guayaquil to Lima and another 28 hours to get to Quito. It would have been fun to see Robert again but I was going to have to pass, schedule is a little tight and even I couldn´t imagine flying from Lima to Havana to Guayaquil back to Lima in the span of 3 weeks.

Then I thought about heading to Cali, Colombia to meet up with José the guy I met in Rio. He offered me a place to stay and I know he´d show me around. Plus maybe I could finally actually learn some salsa in one of the dance capitals of the world. And I came close to hoping on a bus and crossing the border, but for some reason I decided not to. I felt like I´d be running away from Ecuador and I wasn´t quite ready to do that.

Instead I caught a bus to Salinas. I heard Salinas described as Ecuador´s answer to Miami Beach. And apparently for 6 months out of the year that´s exactly what it is. June is not one of those six months. The Ecuadorean coast right now is a little chilly, kinda overcast, and pretty deserted. It´s still nice, quite nice in fact, but a far shot from the Cuban beaches I was lavishing in only a few days ago.

But Salinas has a beautiful calm bay perfect for swimming, the people are a little reserved but friendly, and there´s lots of time to relax and do nothing. I hear the hump-back whales can be seen not too far off-shore these days and the sea-lions are hanging out on a rock only a bike ride away. In 3 days here I´ve met exactly two foriegners and that doesn´t seem too bad.

In the hotel I´m staying at they have a map of the Ecuadorean coast line. The Ruta del Sol runs parallel to the coast passing little fishing towns, quite beaches and major surfing hubs like Montañita and Puerto Lopez. This seems like a fine path to take towards Quito, I still have almost two weeks before I need to be there and not a damn thing to do. Somehow I´m convinced this won´t be a problem.