Trip to The Coast

We got an 8 day pass from our dentist while crowns and bridges were being prepared at the lab so we decided to head for the coastal area. It is quite a downhill ride from 8000 - 9000 ft to water level. The trip to Quito was uneventful but to get the bus to the coast we had to take a taxi from one side of Quito to the other as the terminal north and south are kept miles apart to keep hundreds of buses from jamming up the streets - very smart but inconvenient for the traveller. We have no concept in Canada of the number of buses on the road as we compare the terminals to Greyhound. Both terminals are five acres minimum and there must be 100 buses at a time coming and going in each.

We got the bus to Pendagalis on the coast and as it was a scheduled 7 hour trip we decided to put our computer up on the luggage rack above our seat rather than holding it on our laps. Big mistake as the rack started slightly behind us and it was out of our sight range. We covered the case up with our jackets but someone on the bus must have seen the case and on the trip slipped the computer out of it. This was annoying enough but they also took my battery charger and download connector for my camera. It looks like I have a minimum of pictures to take from now on as my camera only takes a rechargeable battery and there is no chance of replacing it here. Also I can´t put any more photos on the blog until we get home.

The bus trip was miserable through all kinds of heavy construction. At one point we came across a crew building some concrete retaining walls like on the Sea to Sky and they were using back yard cement mixers and wheelbarrows! A lot of the new highways are being built of concrete in quite a wide 2 lane with with a shoulder so I certainly hope these are not being poured the same way!

We got to our destination and found a hotel looking out over a long sandy beach. In the morning we tried to have breakfast but the restaurant wasn´t open but one of the owners came in and greeted us in very good English and got us a cup of coffee. It turned out that she had taken her business admin in Toronto. We explained our problem to her about the computer and she very kindly offered to come to the police station to fill out a report, something we couldn´t have accomplished without her as the police understood zero English and looked like he had about the same number of brains. This completed we caught the bus to Canoa down the coast where we wanted to stay as Pendagalis was horrible.

We arrived in the dark as the trip was very slow with all the constuction and stops along the way. The Inn we had chosed was half open and wasn´t very good (great website though - you can´t always go by them). We got the taxi to take us to another one called the Hosteria Canoa which was wonderful. A few rooms in a building and the rest were cabins spread down to an endless sandy beach with the surf rolling in. We decided to walk along the beach to town which was a very long walk for me and it took a grande cerveza to recover!

We now ran into a problem that we hadn´t known about or anticipated. This was a big long weekend holiday and all the places were either full or they were looking for 4 day bookings. We decided to get to Bahia and hoped we could get the bus back to Quito. The bus goes to San Vincente and the you have to take a ferry to Bahia. Well we anticipated a Hollyburn or equivalent but the ferries turned out to be 20 passenger small and low boats. I had quite an adventure getting on and off the ferry but accomlished it with the help of some strong armed crew members. They now have a long causeway under constuction. The vehicle ferry I am sure is an old US army landing craft that had a freeboard of about 18 inches.

Bahia is a beautiful small town on a point with sheltred ocean on one side and wonderful surf rolling in on the other. We fluked into a nice hotel with a funny little room and wandered down to the restauant for coffee. To our surprise this side of the hotel looked over the open ocean with a great seawall for miles and a few super hotels right on the ocean side. We decided the bar at one down the street must have a perfect surf view so we went there and enjoyed a cerveze with the surf splashing up 20ft from us. The hotel was absolutely first class with all facilities for guests - I inquired at the desk about room prices and a nice double room was only 85 - 350 in Tofino.

                                                    The seawall and beach in Bahia

                                           The best little cerveza joint on the seawall

That evening we treated ourselves to a blowout of the budget dinner and a bottle of wine and watched the sun set on the surf. As the Mastercard ads say, ´priceless´.

We had made a bus booking as soon as we arrived so we regretably left Bahia and faced the long bus rides back to Ibarra. A great trip but very tiring as again there was tons of costruction along the way and a total of 13 hours on the bus - numb bums all around!