By now, some of you might be like, “Thank God this is the last Ecuador post.” If that’s you, I’m sorry. I promise this is the last one! Hopefully you’ve enjoyed these travel posts. I always find travel blog posts to be really fun to write and also look back on. 🙂 The final destination of my Ecuador study abroad was the hustling, bustling city of Guayaquil and boy was it different from anything I had experienced so far.
On our way out of Cuenca and into Guayaquil, we stopped at Homero Ortega Panama hats, a place that makes (here’s a shocker) Panama hats. There were a lot of really pretty and well made hats and I’m a little bummed that I didn’t get one, but that’s ok. Now I know where to get a really nice, high quality hat if I’m looking for one! It was really interesting to see the process of making the hats. They’re woven into a pretty generic pattern and then pressed into this machine that forms the actual shape of the hats and then any additional accessories or designs are added after. Pretty cool if you ask me.
After our hat shopping excursion, we stopped about halfway between Cuenca and Guayaquil at this place called Dos Chorreras for lunch and a tour of the little abandoned mountain town up the road. The tour was cool and the city was absolutely tiny! There was a small mine, saloon, church, and maybe like two or three tiny, tiny houses from what I can remember. And each building wasn’t very big either. Imagine a typical college dorm room and maybe cut a fourth of that off. That was the amount of space on the inside of the church. It was really cold when we did the tour so it felt reaaaally nice to go inside the hotel/restaurant and sit somewhere warm. For lunch, we had a choice of trout (as the place had a trout farm) or steak and I went with steak. The dish it was served on was in the shape of a cow too so that was fun! Prior to the meal, there was a really yummy soup served too and of course my meal wouldn’t be complete without blackberry juice. I ate way too well in Ecuador. Way too well.
After lunch, it was another hour and a half (I think?) to Guayaquil and we arrived at our hotel, Hotel Palace, just before dinner. We had time to unwind and relax and then we got dinner on our own. A couple of the other students and I went and got empanadas at a place not too far from our hotel and boy was I glad that I went with other people. There were so many beggars and someone cat-called me along the way too.
While waiting for my empanadas, this homeless woman stood right at my side pleading that I give her money and on my other side, this nine-year old boy was doing the same. I wanted to help, but I just felt so uncomfortable. My empanadas were ok, but I feel like the experience of the city itself, made them less enjoyable.
There was also this man walking around the empanada stand who had blood GUSHING down his left arm (and when I say gushing, like it was really running down his arm) and it was dripping all over the streets and sidewalks. I’m not sure where he had been or what had happened, but after seeing all of that, I was ready to go hide in my hotel room. I guess that was how Guayaquil welcomed us?
After a unique dinner experience, we went and got ice cream and I got a blackberry milkshake at an ice cream shop across the street from the empanada stand. It was pretty yummy. 🙂 Our night wrapped up with a trip to an iguana park. Somewhere in the center of Guayaquil, there’s this park that is literally just home to a BUNCH of iguanas. Like so many iguanas. They were all sleeping by the time we got there but it was cute to see so many cute creatures. Well, maybe they weren’t all cute. Some of them were though! After some time chilling with the iguanas, we all went back to the hotel and hit the hay for the night.
The next day, we had a wonderful breakfast at our hotel and were all ready for our big business visits to Guangala Chocolate and Tulicorp, another chocolate company. Guayaquil = warm temperatures = optimal chocolate making and eating conditions. At Guangala, we got to tour the patio and learn about the chocolate making process and more specifically, the process of extracting cacao from cocoa beans and preparations for turning the cacao into chocolate. It was hot and WOW was the sun beating down on us and I was so thankful to have a water bottle with me that day. It was nice to have my hat too. At Guangala, I realized just how small the world is too. The wonderful woman that gave us a tour played tennis at CSU and her and I had a chance to talk a little about tennis so that was fun. 🙂
Following our roast on the patios of Guangala, we had lunch at this really cute place that had seafood and really good hot sauce. After lunch, it was time for our tour of Tulicorp, the other chocolate factory. At Tulicorp, we learned about how the cocoa beans are actually made into chocolate and had an opportunity to try a variety of chocolates. Let’s just say that I was pretty chocolate-ed out after this day. There was so much chocolate.
Now full of chocolate, we headed back to our hotel, had some time to relax and shower and then, again it was dinner time. One of the supervisors wanted to find this placed called Arthur’s Cafe that was about a 30-minute walk away from our hotel and so a group of students and I joined her in finding it. Sadly, that cafe was closed permanently and we didn’t know that until we were standing at the vacated doors of what was once Arthur’s Cafe. We were all pretty hungry at this point so we found some other place nearby that was alright. The service was HORRIBLE and the food was so-so, but at least I got some more blackberry juice out of the deal! After our meh dinner, we made the 30-minute trek back to our hotel and I passed out.
And just like that, it was January 15th. Our last day in Ecuador. We had breakfast at the hotel and then drove for about two hours to get to Salinas Beach, where we would spend a good chunk of the day. I spent some time swimming, working on a tan (which tends to be VERY hard for me), and doing one other thing that has me permanently traumatized… A banana boat. So some of you might be asking, what’s so scary about a banana boat? To those of you that have been on one and enjoyed yourselves, you’re not human. To those of you that have been on one and hated every second of it, I feel ya. To those of you that are like banana boat????? I’ll explain.
So a banana boat is a giant inflatable banana with straps attached to the top, which is where you sit. One end of the devilish banana is attached to a boat and as you ride along on this banana, the boat driver makes a sharp turn and you fall off unless you hold on for dear life. It’s supposed to be “fun”. Tell me WHERE the fun is, because I don’t see it.
See the thing is, I didn’t know that you were going to be flung off the banana as the boat driver guided us around. I thought we would just hop on the banana, and then get to bounce around and ride the waves. If that’s what the banana boat had actually been, I would’ve loved it. But NOOOOO. I legitimately get chills writing about it. Upon our first turn, we were WHIPPED off that stupid banana and a bunch of the people I was on the banana boat with all crashed into each other. One of my friends got smacked really hard in the head and someone or something smacked my ankle reaaaal hard. We had life vests on, so we weren’t going to drown but the feeling of being flung from a banana and then tossed around in the water and banged up by a bunch of other people was so so so NOT fun. We did this unfortunate banana flipping thing two more times and then it was all over. Thank. God. 10/10 would not ever recommend a banana boat to ANYONE. As I write this, my ankle still feels a bit tender because of the damage that was done on that gosh darn banana boat. Not good. Not good at all.
After that traumatizing experience, I remained on land for the rest of our time at the beach. Some ice cream helped lighten my mood, but wowza was I ready to go home at that point. After our time at the beach, we stopped at a local spot for lunch that had some of the best fettuccine with shrimp I’ve ever had. They also served my meal with a mountain of rice and avocado which was much appreciated.
We arrived at the hotel back in Guayaquil about two hours after leaving our lunch spot and by then, we had to finish up our packing and shower. At this moment, I realized just how sunburnt I had gotten. Yes, I had applied sunscreen, but being at the equator is just so different than being under the sun in Colorado. I was RED. I barely peeled later though, so that’s good!
Now all ready to go to the airport, we had our farewell dinner at this gorgeous place that had some of the best service we had the entire trip. The food was phenomenal too. If I could remember the name of the place, I would definitely share and recommend that if you’re ever in Guayaquil. It was incredible. I definitely felt under-dressed though, in my leggings and hoodie. It was definitely a more formal eating spot.
And now the fun had ended and it was time to soak in the long lines of customs and airport security. Yippeeeeee. Getting through customs and security took a while, but it was fine. The miserable part came with the six-hour flight to Dallas. My sinuses wanted to kill me and it felt like my head was going to explode the entire flight to Dallas. And to add to that, it was also past midnight and I was trying to sleep. No bueno. When we got close to Dallas, our pilot announced that a storm was over Dallas that prevented us from landing so we had to detour to Austin, sit there on the plane for 30 minutes and then made it to Dallas.
And that was the cherry on top. Our little detour resulted in us missing our connecting flight to Denver, and the people with American Airlines were everything BUT helpful about our situation. No one was helping us get on another flight and I was just feeling miserable and exhausted and just wanted to be home already. Customs in Dallas really sucked too.
Finally, a wonderful woman came to our rescue and helped us all get on a flight back to Denver (even if it was going to put me home two hours later than planned) so we were going to be home. I fueled up with some Starbucks and before we knew it, we were on our flight back to Denver.
I got home around noon and I don’t think I’ve ever been happier to be home. I really missed my country, of course, but I really missed my family. To give up two weeks of my winter break for a study abroad was totally worth it, but that time I missed with family is also important to me and I was a little bummed that I only have a couple of days with them before I had to leave for spring semester to start. Regardless, it felt good to be home and enjoy the time I could with my family.
Ecuador, you were an incredible, hospitable country, even if I got sick while visiting. Thank you for being the first country, beside the United States for me to visit and explore. I’ll be back and I’m looking at you, Galapagos Islands! 🙂 If you’re a student in college or even high school that is considering studying abroad, I highly recommend looking into some sort of program, even if it is a short two-week thing, because it really gives you a chance to explore a new culture, have some fun, and get college credit while doing it.
I hope you all have enjoyed the Ecuador posts and on that note, I’ll see you all next Sunday. 🙂