Montañita,Salinas,and Guayaquil....and we´re Galapagos bound!

Hello Everyone-

Justin and I had a good few days in Montañita hanging out with the volunteers that we met at Alandaluz and Cantalapiedra. There was one American, 2 Chileans, 2 Dutch, one Austrian, and a few from Ecuador. We spent the weekend in the party town of Montañita, and then moved on to Salinas on Sunday. We were excited to go to a place that we thought would be a nice hangout, but since we were on the coast in the rainy/cloudy season, it was overcast and there was hardly anyone there. It was a very different place than we had been to before, and it looked a bit like a nice beach in Florida, full of high rise condos and hotels as far as the eye could see. But they were all empty. So we hung out on the beach, which was ok, but the real treat of our two nights in Salinas was the dicovery of a grocery store. Until then we only had convenience stores, and we were not sure where everyone bought there food. We think that in smaller towns people drive around and sell meat and rice on the street. So we generally eat at restaurants, trying to find the best $1-2 meal.

We spent 2 nights and day in Salinas and then came to Guayaquil. It is a big, noisy, somewhat polluted, but affluent city. There is not a lot to do here for tourists, and we only came here to find a last minute deal on a Galapagos trip. Yesterday, after 3 travel agents, and 2 hours at the final agent, we are booked on an 8-day trip on the boat the Queen of the Galapagos: http://www.galasam.com.ec/queenofgalapagos.html# But don´t be alarmed we definitely did not pay the price that is listed. We were looking for a tourist class boat, but they were all booked. I think there are less cancellations on the less expensive boats than on the more expensive ones. So we are headed to the Galapagos on Monday!

Until then we are leaving Guayaquil to go to a nicer and livelier town, Cuenca. It is up in the mountains so we are headed back up to a substantial elevation. From there we may make day trip to the smaller Baños which has many public thermal baths.

Pictures should be loaded soon on Pictures 2!

I hope everyone is doing well.

Jess