Guayaquil

The bus trip from Mancora was comfortable but very slow with the border crossing and all the subsequent document checks. The time passed by quick enough by chatting to Veronica, a nice girl from Lima heading up to visit her boyfriend in Guayaquil. An hour after the border we saw Machala surrounded my many banana plantations wizz past. The town wasn`t on the highway so the bus wasn`t stopping, so it looked like I was going to Guayaquil. Upon arriving to Guayaquil Veronica was met by her boyfriend Andrès, whose mum also invited me to crash at their place. Without any plans this sounded like a pretty good offer. We headed home and I claimed the sister, Karla`s bed and then we all headed out to the local parrillado for a good pile of meat for dinner. In the evening we did a lap through the city centre which looked very nice and modern.
The next day we all drove into town to have a better look around the Malecon 2000, the city´s waterfront precinct with plenty of nice gardens, restaurants and various monuments. We grabbed a bite to eat here then headed back home. Andrès` mum went back to grab the car and unfortunately got her handbag robbed on the way. She was a bit upset so being the only other driver around the duty fell to me. Was the first time driving on the other side of the road but this didn`t take too long to get used to, just the crazy ecuadorian driving took some adjusting too!
We chilled out back at home doing some karaoke to the local music and grabbed some dinner from the local hamburger stall about midnight.
This morning we had a big breakfast of omelets and then I headed off to the bus station to get back on track in Cuenca. The whole family decided to come along to see me off. Of course, many thanks to Andrès, Veronica, Karla and family for their very fine hospitality and making my stay in Guayaquil very enjoyable.
The 5 hour bus trip to Cuenca was very nice. Most of this time was spent ascending a single mountain so we really gained some altitude and then passed through the cloud forests and lakes of the Cajun national park.