Ecuador Day 11: Breakfast, Parque de las Iguanas, Shopping, Geocaching, a Tour of Guayaquil and an Early Flight

We got up around 7-8 a.m. and Maritza suggested we go across the street to a hotel to eat at Cafeteria La Canoa because she was hungry and assumed we all were too.  We gathered up everyone who wanted to go and took the two minute walk down the street.  The place was busy but we got a table right away for about eight people.  We were handed menus and of course they were in Spanish.  Maritza and Myrna translated for us.  Dr. Smith told us about this great app on your phones called Google Translate.  You put it in picture mode and hover over the text it will translate it into whatever language you want it to say.

I ordered French toast, eggs and bacon and mom ordered the same.  We both got orange juice as well.  It was sad to say that even though it was restaurant food it sure hit the spot after being away from the food I was used to.  I ate it so fast I didn't realize I was done with it until I looked down at my plate.  We visited and discussed what was on the schedule for the day.  The rest of the group should be getting back to the city soon.

When we were done eating, we paid our bill and Maritza told us about the iguana park across the street.  Since the city had free WiFi, I used it to pull up the geocaching app to see if there were any close by to walk to.  Turns out there was one inside the iguana park.  Score!

We walked across the street and into the Parque de las Iguanas and they were not kidding.  There were iguana's everywhere!  We spend a good hour or so wandering around the park.  I found the spot the cache, The Iguana Park (GC2N944) was suppose to be but the container was missing so I made a replacement cache until the cache owner could fix it.  That was a blue pop cap and a receipt I found on the ground.  I made it work.

We moved on to the Catholic Church that was nearby and I can tell you I've never been inside one and this one was pretty epic.  You could tell it was old with the amount of erosion done to the outside of the building.  When we went inside I was in awe of how big this place was and since it was Sunday they were having service.  Anyone and everyone could come if they wanted to.  The priest was giving his sermon in Spanish as we walked through.  The windows were made out of stained glass and everything had some sort of decorative cloth over it as well as lit candles.  It was definitely the church of churches that I've ever been to.  I was overwhelmed.

We found out that everyone else had arrived from Santa Elena a few minutes ago.  They all went to the same place to eat.  Afterwards, Amy, Beth, mom, Kaitlin and I went to the small store across the street from the apartment.  I needed more gum, some fingernail clippers and some more water.  Like I said about the razors, I thought they would take away my fingernail clippers if I brought them onto the plane.  I really needed to trim my nails because they were getting scary.

We went into the iguana park again with Amy and Kaitlin because Beth didn't want to go because she is afraid of the iguanas.  She thought they were going to come after her.  We showed up just in time to watch all the iguanas eat their lunch:  lettuce!

We all gathered in front of the park and Myrna told us that once everyone is done we were going to get into some taxis and head to the market.  I was actually excited about the market because I hadn't gotten any souvenirs since the few I got on Galapagos.  The taxi ride there mom and I made sure to go with Dr. Harris because she spoke Spanish.  Again, we made a rule, meet up where we entered the market in about an hour so we don't get lost.  I heard when we got there Myrna got left behind and had to take her own taxi.  She really wasn't mad because she knew her way around and she was glad it was her rather than one of the non Spanish speaking volunteers.

Mom and I walked in together and started looking at all the stuff.  It reminded me of a flea market or an art bizarre.  A lot of it you could tell was homemade.  I wasn't sure what I was looking for exactly but I wanted a good deal.  I knew I wanted a fridge magnet but I had to find the right one.  Also, I've been noticing all the hometown soccer team, Barcelona S.C.,  jerseys people were wearing and wondered if I could get one for Ben. I found a vendor that was willing to sell me one for $6.  I knew it wasn't a real one but it was still fun to find something to bring home for Ben.  I also saw all the alpaca blankets and wanted to get one.  I found out that they are made near Quito in the highlands.  I found one for $18 and I knew this would come in handy for the plane ride back to the US.  I didn't want to have another blanket fiasco.  An hour passed and we met back up at the entrance and got back into the taxis to be taken to the apartment.

From there, we just waited around for a while.  Dr. Smith and Thomas wanted to go to a Marathon store and didn't let us know when they were going to be back.  I wanted to get on the city tour bus so we could see it in the day light.  Remember, on the equator, it starts getting dark around 6ish.  It was past 3 already and I was getting impatient.  Apparently Kaitlin got sick from too much sun so Amy and Beth weren't going to go with us.  When they finally got back from shopping, which was near 4ish, we hustled over to the park and hopped on the bus for $2.50...probably the cheapest tour I've ever been on.  The tour was suppose to last about an hour.

It was a double-decker bus and of course we sat on the top of it.  I always thought my first double-decker would be in England and never thought it would be in Ecuador.

Life is totally unpredictable and you never know what opportunities are just around the corner.  Mom and I combined must have taken hundreds of pictures with our phones and her camera.  Our little group of nine enjoyed every minute of it.

Because we were on top of the bus there were several times we had to duck our heads from low hanging trees and power lines.  We saw many buildings with amazing architect, neighborhoods, art, churches, parks and even a vista point of a 360 degree view of Guayaquil.

At the viewpoint, we stopped for a half hour and I checked my phone app to see if there was a geocache at this view point and sure enough there was.  Lawrence and Ivette both have geocached before so they knew what I was doing.  Ivette helped me look for it.  It took us about five minutes to locate the nano, Vista - Guayaquil (GC22PC5). 

Now I am up to three caches in Ecuador.  We spent some time enjoying the view before we walked back down to the bus to head back to the park where we started from.

I would recommend this bus tour for anyone who visits Ecuador in the future it was a fun one.  When they dropped us off at the park, Myrna said we could wander around the general vicinity and to let us know the apartment will have someone inside to let you in.  It was roughly 5ish and we knew the sun would be going down soon.

Thomas wanted to go find some food.  Preferably American food.  I agreed.  I was yearning for some Americanized food and I didn't care what it was or if it was bad for me.  Thomas ended up deciding on McDonald's.  I haven't had McDonald's in years.  We asked Lawrence where it was since he's been there a few times since he's been here.  End of the street along the river.  Easy enough.  I have never had McDonald's in another country before it makes you wonder if it tastes the same as it does at home.  I figured it did because it's a franchise and most of the stuff is probably shipped from the US to the international locations.  The menu was a little different because I was looking for the two cheeseburger meal, sadly they didn't have it.  Mom and I went with the McDouble meal.  Shamefully it hit the spot.  We ate next to the windows with the river beside us.  Halfway through our meal we saw fireworks about a quarter of a mile upstream.  It was kinda cool to see the last night we were there.

We walked back to the apartment.  It's been a long 11 days and I was so ready to get back to the states.  Beth, Amy and Kaitlin decided we wanted to be taken to a hotel because Kaitlin didn't feel good and we all felt bad making someone get up and take us to the airport around 3:00 a.m.  They went in the first wave of hotel goers.  Mom and I paid Myrna for the hotel we stayed at for the week and the gas for transportation.  Then their relative Lopez took us to the Holiday Inn, yep, same hotel from when we arrived in Ecuador.

When we arrived, Beth and Amy had just finished dinner at the restaurant inside the hotel.  She helped us check into our hotel and we were to take our stuff up to the third floor.  Amy told us that there would be a taxi waiting for us around 3 to take us to the airport, which was literally right down the road, and to meet in the lobby around 2:50.  Ugh, I was not looking forward to waking up that early.

I immediately took a shower and it was more than glorious.  It was hot, I started smelling better and the shower head they had on there just felt nice on your back and head.  I had to have been in there for at least a half hour.  I dried off, put my bed time clothes on and brushed my teeth.  I was so ready for a real bed.  I booted up my computer while mom showered and got ready for bed.  I talked to Ben, Erika and dad to let them know our next journey and when we would be home.  I verified that Ben would come get us from the Lacey Walmart when we got into town.  Mom got out and she said hi and chatted for a bit before it was time to go to bed.  2:30 a.m. was going to come really quickly.

I got my bed ready, arranged my four pillows accordingly and passed out hard.  I actually don't even remember when I fell asleep I just know it was fast.

Next Adventure:  Ecuador Day 12: Early Morning Flight back to the States via El Salvador, Los Angeles and Finally Home

Ecuador Day 9: Volunteering in Comuna El Azucar, the Night Life in Montañita and Beach House

We woke up around 7 a.m. ish and got ready to go.  We had to pack up everything and put it in the truck because we were moving to the beach house on Punta Blanca.  Dr. Harris's aunt owns the place and is in the process of selling it to move somewhere else.  I found my pants, shirt and jacket as well as mom's stuff on the railing.  We got dressed and took our bags and ourselves downstairs to eat our last breakfast with Richardo.  Again, he had the same stuff out for us to eat.  I had another omelet made to order, some fruit, bread and some juice he made from the fruit I think it was called Uchuva.  It was actually pretty tasty.

Mom took some time to take pictures while everyone was figuring out their mornings.  Our hotel had a turf soccer field and a swimming pool in the back.  I know the night before several of the volunteers hung out in the pool and I just didn't feel like it.

I hung out a bit and used the internet until everyone else was packed up and ready to get in the van and Edna's SUV.  The truck took our bags and supplies to our next location.

Once we got everyone together, we packed up the vehicles and decided as a group to stop by one of the stores to see if they had anymore Lysol wipes and nitrile gloves since we were getting low.  We also bought a bunch of water and yes they sell water in plastic bags, they sorta look like small clear pillows.

We pulled into a gas station.  Here in Ecuador is similar to Oregon and New Jersey, it wasn't self serve.  Their gas was very cheap here as well, it was almost a dollar cheaper there ($1.57 a gallon) than it was at home. 

We got onto the freeway (E40) and headed east towards Guayaquil.  About halfway to our destination, our van got a flat tire and Felipe had to pull over and change the tire.  Mark, one of our volunteers got out and helped him.

They actually fixed it pretty quickly and we were only about a half hour late behind the other vehicles.  When we got to the community center we were going to work out of we were told to put our bags into Edna's SUV so they could be locked inside safe from the community.  We went inside and arranged the inside in such a way people wouldn't be wandering around where they shouldn't be.  The last few days it was overwhelming with the people who weren't being seen with the people who were waiting to be seen just everywhere in these small community buildings. 

We had it set up to where you had to see Dr. Harris for an exam to see which section (restoration, extraction or hygiene) they needed to go to first.  I set up my sterilization area which was near the bathrooms because I needed a sink.  I also set it up to keep people out of that bathroom since there were three of them.

People started to arrive and it got busy.  About an hour into it I found out my sink was leaking so someone found me an extra bucket to gather the water.  So much of it got on the floor already.  It became a slipping hazard and one of the community people brought a mop and mopped it up for me.  I eventually had to move to the second bathroom to use the sink because the other sink was getting really leaky.

Again, I had Thomas walk around checking to see if the dirty instruments needed to come to me to replace them with the sterilized ones.  It was really helpful around noon when it was the busiest.

We did shifts for lunch again like we did yesterday.  Since I was next to the restorative area with my mom and Maritza she basically told us to stop, someone will take over, and to go with her to lunch.  We followed her to one of the member of the community's private homes where they barbequed beef on their make-shift barrel grill and served it with rice, plantains and a weird salad mix.  Again, I gave Maritza my plantain and salad.  We sat there probably for about an hour listening to Maritza's life story and how she became a dentist.  Her story was interesting and I am glad she shared it with us.  We thanked the women for their hospitality and walked back over to the community center.

It started to thin out around 5-6 and I continued to have Thomas help me transport extraction instruments to and from the sterilization area.  I would be the last one to pick up my station after all of the restoration got done at mom and Maritza's area.  Restoration and extractions were definitely the most busiest in terms of people needing care. 

There was one point during the day where I had some time to just relax and take in the experience.  A lot of mother's were not shy about breast feeding their baby's in public...in fact there was nothing taboo about it.  People actually really didn't notice and continued on with what they were doing whether it was a conversation or working.  Another thing that I noticed was a lot of people in this community were wearing some really worn out shoes and clothes.  This community was very rural compared to some of the other ones we visited in the past few days.  One kid stood out while I was people watching.  He was probably around 15-16 years old and he was wearing flip flops that didn't fit him anymore but he continued wearing them because those were probably his only shoes.

Around 7, everyone started picking up their stations and cleaning up after our last patients.  It was so hot and humid inside that community center my pants, shirt and jacket were sticking to me.  I could not wait until I could take a shower.

We loaded up and took all of our stuff to the beach house.  Myrna instructed us to pick rooms however, a few of the volunteers didn't want to stay there so some of them opted to stay at the hotel instead.  She also told us to freshen up but we all didn't have time to take showers so we just changed our clothes and put on some more deodorant.  We were going to Montañita, which was  just north of us by about 30 minutes.

We all piled into the van, Edna's SUV and Carolina's car.  I wasn't sure what this place was going to be like but Myrna told us to keep our money hidden, stay in groups and don't wander off by yourself, ever.  She also mentioned that last year two girls from Argentina came to Montañita for spring break, hung out with the wrong crowd and both ended up getting murdered.  Yikes!

When we got there the place was extremely busy and it was really hard to find a parking spot.  I compared it to a hippy-ish Las Vegas but it was a mini version of Las Vegas.  This was definitely a "sin city" of some sort.  The first thing we did was just take in the experience of this place.  It was humid, you could smell the food cooking in the various restaurants nearby, the various sounds, the dazzling lights, the people hustle and bustling, the energy overloaded your senses.  People were constantly trying to sell you their wares and you just had to politely say, no gracias.

We needed to find some dinner since it was getting late and everyone was getting hungry.  Maeo Beach is the place we all chose to eat because it wasn't busy and they had an array of food choices on their menus.  I was really hoping their menu had a sandwich option but they didn't.  Both of us got an orange smoothy shake thing and we shared a burger and fries. 

Worst burger and fries ever.  It didn't end up agreeing with me and I had to use the restaurant's awful bathroom.  I'm not sure how it affected mom but I was good after using the bathroom.  

We broke up into smaller groups to go wander around.  We were instructed to meet up back at the cars in about an hour.  Mom and I walked around with Dr. Harris, Myrna, Dr. Smith and Thomas.  I wanted to make sure we had someone who spoke Spanish with us.  The only things we ended up purchasing were magnets for my grandparents.  The place was crawling in hostels.  There were hostels everywhere.  We went down to the beach near the clubs.  Several of the younger volunteers went into the clubs and we had to send someone in after them because we were going to be late to the vehicles.  

When we finally gathered everyone, we crammed ourselves into the three vehicles and headed back south towards Punta Blanca along the E-15.  It was late when we arrived but I didn't care.  I was going to take a shower before I went to bed.  There were two bathrooms so I grabbed one and someone else jumped into the other.  I didn't realize it at first but I took a shower with a tiny iguana but it didn't seem to mind.  The shower felt amazing because it was the first hot shower since the apartment on Tuesday.  The hotel that we stayed at throughout the week had luke warm showers.  I relished the warmth and the cleanliness of it.

Everyone in my room got clean for the evening.  Beth, mom and I slept in one room while Kaitlin and Amy slept in the hammocks outside.  We went to bed roughly around midnight.  I was nice to finally relax and go to sleep. 

 
Next Adventure:  Ecuador Day 10:  Beach House Water Park, Salinas, La Chocolatera and Back to Guayaquil

Ecuador Day 2: The Red Eye Plane Ride, Our Layover in Colombia and A Night Adventure in Guayaquil

As I was contemplating how I was going to stay comfortable and warm, our first meal wheeled up at about midnight, somewhere over Mexico.  I chose the chicken and rice dish, the other was beef and noodles.  I had started my free movie and I chose Wild, so I ate and watched my movie and of course only my left earphone worked.  Man, this flight kept getting better and better.

I watched my movie in its entirety and near the end I was starting to get tired.  This traveling was kicking my butt and I was not even remotely comfortable in my seat to even think of getting any sleep.  I got up to use the restroom and to blow my nose because it was getting very dry with all the recycled air.  Around 2 a.m. we encountered a little bit of turbulence.

I came back to figure out how I was going to sleep.  I tried multiple positions, blew up my inflatable pillow and tried.  Failed.  I sat there for a few minutes and then got frustrated that everyone around me had blankets and I didn't.  I was cold and wanted to sleep.  Beth came by and told me she couldn't sleep and asked how I was doing, I told her I didn't get a blanket and offered me hers since she wasn't using it.  I thanked her and spent the next hour trying to get comfortable to sleep.  I did get at least 1.5 to 3 hours of sleep until daylight woke me up 4:00 a.m. our time and 6:00 a.m. local time.

With an hour and a half left of our flight, the flight attendants handed out drinks and hot sub sandwiches.  Mine was turkey, provolone and pesto and I ate it with water because nothing else sounded good.  I couldn't go back to sleep so I started my travel journal (which eventually became this blog.)

We arrived in Colombia around 8:00 a.m. local time.  This was my first legit country other than the US and technically Canada.

We grabbed our bags and got off the plane to head to immigration/security. 

I forgot about my unopened brand new bottle of water and had to throw it away.  I had noticed a lot of women here are employed by the airport.  Again, we had to take everything in our pockets, keys, cell phone and belts off except for our shoes.  This time I had to take my laptop out.  Once everything was gone through, my bag was asked to be opened so I could show her my unopened toiletries in the Ziploc bag.  I had to ask Katie what the woman was asking me at first.  I took it out and explained that all of it was brand new and unopened.  The woman said okay and told me I was good to move on. 

We all walked down the corridor and into the waiting area.  We used the restroom, found a good spot to set up camp (for the next 8 hours) and turned on the WiFi.  It took us a while to figure out how to use it since our phones were from the US and not South America.

A few of us got up to look for breakfast and coffee while the others stayed behind to watch the bags and to relax for a bit.  As people moved on to their flights, we took over the comfy seats next to the windows.  I fell asleep for a while with mom's neck pillow.  I was so tired from not getting enough sleep on the flight down.

A few hours later I had to wash my face and brush my teeth because I felt gross from all the traveling and not showering.  I could not wait to get to the hotel in Ecuador so I could shower.  Everyone came back after looking at all the culture spread around the airport and we all took it easy, chatted for a bit and fell asleep again.  Amy snored and Katlin got it on video.   I ended up eating one of my Cliff Bars just to have some food in me so I didn't have to go spend money.  We tried starting a card game but no one had the attention span to follow through with it plus it was almost time to get ready for our flight.

Mom wanted to get a Colombia shirt (for her travel quilt she is going to make) so we walked over and bought two and got one for free and got a water for mom.  While we looked, we had a woman, who was very short, supervise us as we looked.  It was either their custom there or a company policy that people were assigned assistants to help shop for them.  We literally couldn't touch anything we could only point to it and she would hand it to us to inspect to see if we wanted it or not.  It was an experience.  We ended up spending about $57.00 which was $168,788.40 in Columbian Pesos and I was like woah!  1 US Dollar was about 2,961.20 Colombian Pesos.  It was weird getting our receipt and seeing all of those digits.

We walked back to our "camp" and hiked all the way to Gate 52.  I sat at a plug in for a bit because my phone was almost dead.  When it was time to board, we had to ride a bus on the tarmac to our airplane.  We got off and walked up the stairs to the plane, found our seats and put our bags into the overhead compartments.  I sat next to mom, I was in the middle and on the other side was a very polite guy and Beth, Kaitlin and Amy sat in the seats across the aisle to our right.

This was a very turbulent flight.  It was a short one but it was pretty shaky.  About halfway through we were served turkey, cheese and mustard hot sub sandwiches, chips and a drink.  I wrote my blog so far on our trip for the last part of our flight.  We descended into Ecuador.  We finally got to our destination after 24 hours of traveling.  I was so ready for a shower and a bed.

We got off the plane and grabbed the zebra bag that we checked in back in Seattle.  We went through customs and before we actually entered Ecuador, we had to go to a counter and the person asked us some questions, checked and stamped our passport for entry and welcomed us to their country.  This was my first stamp in my passport and I was super stoked!  We exited the airport and was taken by shuttle to our hotel, which was literally down the street at the Holiday Inn.  We really could have walked there it was so close.  We checked in, thankfully the front desk crew spoke English, they checked our passports to verify that we were suppose to be on the guest list and gave us our cards for rooms 503 and 505.  Amy, Beth and Kaitlin shared one room and mom and I shared the other.

We only had time to freshen up, hide our valuables and head downstairs.  Katlin had talked the hotel and the hotel shuttle driver into taking us to the mall and luckily they had a market inside.  He picked us up and the traffic in Guayaquil was insane!  Let's say you have three lanes, well the cars are so close to one another those three lanes are really six lanes of traffic with horns honking, people cutting off each other but the funny thing is no one hits anyone and no one gets road rage.  It's a normal thing here and everyone is used to it.

Mall de Sol was huge!  Our shuttle driver told us he would be back at 8 p.m. to pick us up in this exact spot.  We thanked him and went into the mall.  So many mazes, nooks and crannies.  I got lost instantly. We eventually just started following Kaitlin around. We went into a place called Mega Maxi, we laughed, it is similar to a Fred Meyer.  We found a bunch of stuff we could eat for breakfast the next day since we didn't want to spend $20 on breakfast at the hotel. I bought some bananas, Froot Loops and some milk.  I didn't bring a razor because I thought they would take it away at the airport so I bought a pair of them.

Then we went upstairs to the food court and got dinner.  There were tons of choices, including American food/franchises, and mom couldn't decide so I decided for us.  We picked Texas Chicken, which is an affiliate of Church's Chicken, because chicken sounded good.  It came with fries and a drink for $3.00.  We sat down as a group and ate.  The food tasted a bit different because they use different oils and spices than we do.  The ketchup tastes less sweet and more spicier than ours.  It was almost time to head back to meet our shuttle driver so we tried to remember where we had to go.  We stood outside until we saw the shuttle, he was about three minutes late and we jokingly made fun of him for it.  His name was Dario and he definitely made this an experience.

When we got back I opted not to go swimming or to the gym with everyone.  Instead, I talked to Erika and Ben while they drove home from the farm.  We shared stories.  Mom walked the treadmill while Amy, Beth and Kaitlin swam.  After I was done talking to them, I went and took the shower I have been dreaming of since I got home from work on Thursday.  It's been 48 hours since I showered last and this shower was utterly amazing.  It was great to feel clean again after all the airports, recycled air, weather and sweat.

Mom came back up shortly after.  I got onto my computer and she jumped in the shower.  I repacked my bag then sat and did some stuff on the computer.  About 10 p.m. local time, I was ready to pass out.  I turned off all the lights, crawled into the bed, arranged the pillows and passed out hard.  I really needed sleep and it felt nice to finally lay and close my eyes.  I didn't wake up until I heard mom in the bathroom the next day around 6:15ish.

Next Adventure:  Day 3: Ecuador to the Galapagos Islands, Tortuga Bay and Downtown Port Ayora