Travelling throughout Ecuador, I´ve noticed that the architecture here seems to be in a constant state of disrepair. Most of the time I can´t decide if people have moved in early to a half built place or found an abandoned building and spruced only part of it up. Oftentimes I will see an abandoned building with no doors and find in it a bakery or a shop. Other times one level of a building will be completely finished and another will have unfinished brick pillars with dangerous looking wires spouting out of the top. We´ve noticed these half-built structures in abundance existing alongside modern ones everywhere from the inland to the coast of Ecuador.

Beach vendor at Montañita

Our Ruta del Sol began in the carnivalesque town of Montañita where vendors, jugglers, bongo drummers and unicyclists alike all negotiate their way through the throng of people that arrived for the Ecuadorian long weekend. Montañita is comprised of two main streets made up exclusively of restaurants and hotels which blare music for the gaggles of girls and machismos of men to groove to. Three meters from their doorsteps are tables full of everything from $1 CDs to beverages, clothes and accessories. We sat and watched the night happen and eventually made our way past the dance parties to our very small yet expensive room.

Sunday we lounged on the hot sunny beach and took what it had to offer...sand, surf, beer, coconut drinks, oysters and really anything else you could possibly think of. Montañita that night was a town in denial. A whole street and part of the beach must have been the urinal from the party before and the same loud music blared into the empty streets from each vacant bar. Vendors shouted their wares to no one in particular, jugglers and unicyclists still wandered up the street (with ease this time) and three bongo drummers drummed until the wee hours of the morning. We decided to say goodbye and move on to calmer places.

The Dogs of Puerto Lopez

Puerto Lopez is a town ruled by dogs, cocks and the occasional wandering pig. Dogs congregate everywhere and rove in packs of ten or more - you can hear them barking late into the night competing for air time with the nocturnal roosters. We watched from our perch on a ship-turned-bar on the beach and they seem enraptured in their own dog politics, paying little attention to the likes of humans.

The nearby national park of Manchililla has the most gorgeous beaches that we have seen so far in Ecuador. On Playa Los Frailes, the water is clear and warm and the sand is white. There are no vendors (so no beer this time) but we appreciated the lack of people and felt comfortable leaving our daypacks to venture into the waves together.

Courting Boobies

From Puerto Lopez we booked a one day ´Poor Man´s Galapagos´ trip. We travelled by boat through humpback whale breeding grounds to the tiny Isla de la Plata. From the boat and on the island we saw several humpbacks thrusting their massive bodies into the air and back into the sea but we preferred watching the boobies on the island! Blue Footed Boobies are a curious, clumsly sort of character. Watching their clumsy landing and their silly waddle became highly entertaining as their large blue feet just don´t seem to fit their little bodies!! We saw a few different pairs courting which seems similar to dating - lots of long walks and innane chatter. The lovely female is contantly being whistled at by the males and she will go out with several boobies before deciding on her mister right. We also saw a few masked boobies and frigate birds, but the blue-footed boobies were our favorite.

Brett Paragliding

After four days in Puerto Lopez we made our way north to Crucita to try paragliding! After a 20 minute ride above the waves and the city we both wanted to learn how to do it ourselves. Crucita was meant to be a quick stop on our way to Canoa but we decided to stay an extra night and take advantage of the sunny climate! Both nights we sat on the upper deck of the restaurnat and watched the pelicans dive bombing for fish. They seem as if they are being shot out of the sky one by one instead of looking for food.

Our last stop on the coast was a beach town called Canoa. Our hostal was right on the beach and had a great atmosphere. There was pool, ping-pong, volleyball, loads of hammocks and even a bench-press for Brett! Our second day was scorching hot and the two of us ended up with very bad sunburns because we were skimping on sunscreen. I was reading in a hammock one morming, and a little puppy attacked my ponytail. When I tried to swat him with my book he ripped a page out and wrestled it to the ground and when convinced it was dead, the page was abandoned. The puppy was later escorted from the hotel as a result of an unnconnected altercation. When the rain started falling in Canoa we decided our Ruta Del Sol was over and headed inland.

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