Back on the road, and have left the good living of Manta. Most of the country seems to run on change. If travelling to Ecuador, good advice would be to bring one hundred dollars with you, in one dollar bills. The buses everywhere are 20cents, cab rides are 1dollar and many other street foods are cheap as well. Manta, however, was how the top 1% lives here in Ecuador. But, even that top `1% is much cheaper than the US, more like the upper middle class prices. Beach front homes for 200k, condos on the beach for 50k, the finest meals at a restuarant for 7dollars, etc. And, there is some of the best surfing in Ecuador right in Manta. Unfortunately, it is not surfing or wave season, so I am out of luck this trip.
Driving with Dario and family to Guayaquil has was cool. We passed many small towns and each is known for something. There is a town just known to make pillows, another rice, and another things from whicker, etc. Whatever the town is known for, every small store sells exactly the same thing! It´s something to see. It was fun trying to guess what I would see going form one town to antoher. Also ate something that was pretty darn good called humitas. It´s kind of a steamed corn bread, rapped in a banana leaf with cheese inside.
I´m here in Guayaquil only for one night, and tomorrow I´ll catch a bus to Quito, the capital of Ecuador. There I will be totally on my own for two days, then I´ll fly to Bogota, Colombia.
We did party pretty hard the last night in Manta though. People here in Ecuador really only drink two things; Pilsner beer or scotch whisky sometimes mixed with water. The beer is good, but the whisky will put you on your ass, or face! We started at his favorite restuarant, where the owners really began to like me as well and made something special, not on the menu, just for us taht was on the house with wine included! Then went to an outside bar where there was a live band and hooked up with some of their friends, who then joined us in a hopping dance club. They were playing the old school hip hop that I like to call pop hop that was popular when I went to HS, and is still played at city proms today in awesome cities in the US like Phila. After we finished up at Karaoke. Turns out that Ecuadorians are generally crazy about that stuff here. There are some sub stories there, but will have to tell some of you personally as I am trying to keep this blog somewhat clean. All I can say is 21!
