I opened my eyes this morning to see an empty bottle of red wine covered in sand sitting on the bedside table. Memories of sitting on the beach laughing and drinking came flooding back to me. I rolled over, looked out the window at the stunning beach in front of me and thought, ‘My life really is amazing.’
My view this morning.
I’m currently traveling north along the Ecuadorian coast, beach hopping through tiny towns and larger cities, swimming, eating and relaxing.
When I first arrived in Ecuador I headed straight for Montanita, one of the best known coastal towns among tourists. When my novio and I started talking about taking a coastal road trip for a few weeks and I mentioned how much I liked Montanita to him, he scoffed and said, “You wait until we get into the north of Ecuador, the beaches just keep getting better the further north you travel.” My novio was completely right.
Currently we are in Canoa, an 8 hour bus ride north of Montanita. The beach is clean and sprawling, the water is clear, the town is large enough to have everything we need but small enough not to be crazy. September is off-peak season so we basically have the whole place to ourselves. It’s been the same in every town we have stopped so far.
Waiting for the bus on the side of the road.
We left Guayaquil a week ago and traveled 3 hours by bus past Montanita to Las Tunnes, a tiny town just north of Ayampe with a disappointingly dirty beach. Seeing garbage littered across the sand as we walked was more than Paco could take so, garbage bag in hand, we collected as much trash as we could as we walked. On the way back we learned the following day was national beach clean up day which was a great thing to hear.
We collected a full bag of rubbish in half an hour walking along the beach.
As we traveled further up the coast through Puerto Lopez to arrive here in Canoa I’m happy to say the beaches are much cleaner.
We’ve been booking our accommodation a day in advance. Paco has traveled the coast before and knows the best places to stop for a few days. We’re spending approximately USD$30 a night on a private room in nice hostels right on the beach, with free wifi and usually a kitchen. Cooking delicious vegetables for dinner that we buy cheaply from local stores, eating lunch at small local restaurants for $3 and working on our tans by spending hours on the beach each day is an amazing way to live.
So much food for $3.
The streets of Canoa are pretty empty due to off-season.
We’re headed toward Quito and have another couple of weeks to get there. If we like a particular town, we stay a little longer. It’s great for me to be traveling with an Ecuadorian local who can speak easily with hostel owners, bus drivers and shop keepers. I get to relax in a way I can’t when traveling alone, and at the moment it’s really nice.
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