A Long Hot Drive Through the Wilds
Trip Start
Jan 03, 2007
1
12
18
Trip End
Jan 21, 2007
Crucita,
Ecuador
Monday, January 15, 2007
Sorry about the delay, but the internet has become even harder to find and use on the Pacific coast... We arrived late Monday night, and the Internet was down Tuesday. Today, Wednesday, I managed to connect via dial-up at the hostel where we are staying. So, here's another update and... MAYBE, some gap filling pictures!
Monday morning, we had breakfast at the *cough*Chaotic*cough* Hostel (not it's real name obviously). We hung around a bit to see if the clouds would clear a bit for one last flight before we left... They didn't, so we jumped in the van and headed West! As we drove for 5 hours, the vegetation changed drastically from sub-tropical to savana-like complete with baobab trees, bamboo shoots and giant cacti to desert-like coastal weather. This side of the Andes could easily pass for any other coastal latin country such as Costa Rica or the Dominican Republic, but dryer. We had a pretty crappy lunch (I believe I got the entire chicken's spine chopped up and fried) in a restaurant called 'Silencio' in a very 'Hickville'-like gaucho town on the way. Anyway, better than nothing I guess! On the coast, in Crucita, we were greeted with open arms by Luis, the hostel's owner and veteran paragliding pilot, his wife, staff and kids. Till now, this place is BY FAR the friendliest, homeliest and overall best hostel we've stayed at. We are right on the beach, we have a private little pool, a built-in kitchen with daily fresh seafood from the market and we are exactly within 5 minutes driving distance from the paragliding launch site just above us on the ridge! BONUS: there are no holes or cracks in the ceilings or walls and NO MOSQUITOS or SPIDERS in our rooms! We all got a good night's sleep.
