November 29, 2016
Today we woke up in Guayaquil, found breakfast at a local cafe/bakery, and caught a cab to the bridge to Isla Santay.
Isla Santay is a protected, mangrove island connected to Guayaquil by an 800 or so meter bridge. On the Guayaquil side, you can rent bikes to go across and explore the island. So we did. Once we got to the other side, there is a pedestrian and cycling elevated boardwalk through and around the island. We explored the area looking for birds, wildlife, and crocodiles.
After about an hour and a half, we went back to Guayaquil, caught a cab back to the hotel to check out, and another to the bus terminal.
The bus terminal is a huge, three-story mall-esque monstrosity, with shops, a grocery store, toy store, you name it. Think Flatirons with buses departing all three levels. I sat Nathan on a bench minding our luggage, bought our tickets, and found us lunch. We ate and hopped aboard our bus bound for Puerto Lopez.
Now, this bus ride didn’t quite measure up to the same standards we had become used to in our Ecuadorian travels. First, there was apparently no AC, so the entire 4-hour trip was with all of the windows open. Not sure if it was related or not to the whole open window thing, but occasionally the bus smelled like an LA Metro, which is to say, maybe someone poo-pooed their shorts on board. Not the whole ride, but just often enough.
We pulled into Puerto Lopez, which is to be our home until we leave, and hopped into a tuk tuk for the 3-minute ride to our hotel.
Mañana, a boat ride to Isla de la Plata, which is the whole reason we are in this little beach town.