Cuenca, Chimborazo, Coast, Guayaquil

There was a national downhill competition in Ecuador 7 hours away, so all the riders from Baños and I went to a city of Cuenca which is considered to be the most beautiful colonial city in all South America. The city is alright, I didn't enjoy it that much. It had a very beautiful main square with a big cathedral and a nice park, but other than that nothing special, and I didn't feel safe at all. At the competition, my heart just stopped watching the riders jump up 2 meters at high speed, then landing on a steep trail which leads into a sharp turn. Or go down a 80 degree hill full speed between the trees.

Beside Cuenca there is a national park which is considered to be the most beautiful park in all Ecuador, so of course we went there. I really really liked it :) It's on a 4000 meter altitude, so it's pretty chilly. When we got there at 8 am, I almost froze. I tried jumping up and down to warm myself up, but because of the altitude it was impossible. The park has 200 lakes, it's flat, and it changes the landscape pretty sharply from a desert like to forest to swamps (which were a lot of fun to jump across) to mountains to rivers and blue caves. It was my favourite hike so far! Part of it I think is because it wasn't uphill :) I really enjoyed the day, but the 8 hour bus drive back almost killed me.

Beside Baños there is another volcano Chimborazo. With it's height of over 6000 meters and location, it's the closest point to the sun. We rented a car from baños, put the bikes at the back, and drove and drove. It was pretty expensive, and I brained washed everybody that I want to go, so fine, we went. But when we got there, the whole mountain was covered in clouds, and it was raining, so I got very upset :(( We stopped at the refuge, and there was another refuge 1 hour up. I started feeling dizzy right away because of the altitude, but it wasn't as bad as Cotopaxi volcano. I said to everybody that I want to go to the other refuge, to kill some time, so hopefully the clouds will clear up. We hiked up, and everything around was just white, we couldn't see not the mountain, not the refuge, nothing, just 2 meters each direction :( When we started going down, there was more and more visibility, and by the time we got onto the bikes we could see the whole mountain right in front of us :) It was beautiful. We rode 1 hour downhill on the road, with the car going behind us, not even 1 meter was up :) And it was so beautiful, the fields, and cows, pine trees, and then after some curves the mountain. The driver said that sometimes we were going 70 km/hr! Also in this area there are a bunch of wild llamas, so tried to chase them, but they're too fast for us :)

Now off to the coast. Sounds like a good idea! The bus leaves Baños at 7:30 pm and arrives at the coast at 6am. How am I gonna stand that bus ride I have no idea. But actually it wasn't that bad. I feel asleep pretty easily, and we arrived at the destination at 5am. Some people got out, and we're still sitting. I asked if we are in Salinas, but we were 15 minutes away, so I kept sitting in the bus. But then the bus turned into a little street, turned off the engine, the driver went onto the front seat, lied down and started snoring. I looked around, and everybody does pretty much the same. What the **** is going on??? Apparently 5 am is too early, the taxis are expensive to get into town, there is nothing open, so the bus waits until 6am in a little city nearby for things to open up. It was such a weird experience. I never seen anything like that before :) Finally 6 am comes, we went into the city. It's 6 am, and the whole place is alive, with a bunch of people doing sports on the beach. But the beach wasn't that nice, and the water dirty, and expensive hotels all around. so we just had breakfast, and continued to the next most touristy city (I think), Montanita which is 2 hours away. I've never seen so many tourists in my life. The town is only something like 4 by 4 blocks, with nothing but hotels/hostels/bars and restaurants in it. There is no space to walk on the streets and the beach is packed! I have no idea how such a little town can hold that many people! It is so hot in there, with a bunch of bugs flying around. We walked around, and went to sleep at 9. Thank god our hotel was off the center, it was Saturday night, and the whole place was one big party. We could hear everything, all the laughter and music, but the loud fan in our room and our exhaustion put us to sleep pretty fast. The next day we went surfing, wooohooo !!! The lesson was pretty cheap, 2 hours for $15. I really enjoy surfing, and after a short while, I was getting up every time :) But then the waves changed, they got much stronger, so I had to jump like 5 waves until I got to the spot, and by that time I was already exhausted, and also they moved closer to the shore, so there was less space to surf, and when you fall, you fall into a 10 cm water and hit the sand pretty hard, so that was the end of surfing for me. At the evening there is a street with 10 stands or more that serve alcoholic drinks with fresh fruits for $2 :)) What can be better than that? I ordered mango daiquiri of course :)

The next morning, I got tired of all the heat and sweat and bugs, and we decided to catch a bus to Guayaquil, which is the biggest city in Ecuador. What a good move! The hotel has A/C, and I felt like a person again. This city has the most beautiful waterfront I've ever seen!! I'm still wondering how the cities in the first world countries just don't care about things like that. And 3rd world countries create these million dollar unprofitable projects that are just so amazing, only for people's pleasure. It's about 5km long, and every detail is so well thought of. It's very modern, and has such a variety of architecture and different design ideas. It's very green, and there are flowers, and flowered trees, and palms growing on some columns, fountains. It's indescribable! We were walking back and forth, back and forth for 2 days.

There is also a hill with a very poor neighbourhood, so the city redecorated one street that goes all the way up, and created it into a bar/restaurant/cafe, safe and secure area. Gave all the houses a face lift. Every house has a picture beside it's door of how it's used to look like before. And there are gates on both sides which you shouldn't cross which lead into the original neighbourhoods, and you can really see the difference between the two.
In the afternoon, it was still hot, so we went into the mall, played bowling and saw Alice in Wonderland 3D. Everything was great except Alice. Such a bad actress! I can't believe they let her play alongside Johny Depp, what were they thinking!!??!!

pictures at http://picasaweb.google.com/evadikushin501/CuencaChimborazoCoastGuayaquil#