Friday was my last day with Interhealth. In the morning we had a relaxed meeting discussing what improvements could be implemented to make the program better and tying up a couple of loose ends. We then had the rest of the afternoon off and a group of us went to a local restaurant called Crepes and Waffles. I got an amazing goat cheese, spinach, and mushroom crepe then shared a chocolate fondu for dessert-so good!
After some reorganizing of my bags and relaxing, it was time for our goodbye dinner. We shared one last meal and listened to some sentimental speeches by Dr. Wedemeyer and a few of the participants. I'm going to miss everyone so much, but it's great knowing I now have friends all over the country that I can visit or even do a rotation with in a few years.
One of my closest friends I made in the program, Morganne, was supposed to have plans and be going to a town called Banos close to Quito for het last few days in Ecuador. However, her plans changed and she decided to head to the coastal city of Guayaquil with me for a couple days instead. I just left her last night to travel to Peru, so now I only have about a week on my own and it was definitely nice to have someone to share experiences with at least for a few days.
Morganne and I headed out of Quito by bus on Saturday morning at 720 for what we were told would be an 8 hour journey. After numerous stops along the side of the road to pick up more people, navigating around the mountain roads, and crawling through towns full of speedbumps while letting vendors on and off who sold food, drinks, and herbs, we didn't arrive until after 6, a full 11 hours after we departed. We arrived to the hostel exhausted, but greeted by a diverse group of travelers from Australia, Ecuador, Chile, and the US. We grabbed some Chinese food for dinner then spent most of the night chatting and hearing everyone's stories and diverse set of reasons for winding up in Guayaquil.
On Sunday, we grabbed a bus to get to city center and Morganne and I spent the day exploring downtown. I'd been told by a couple people that Guayaquil was mostly the business center of the country and didn't have much to offer, but I really enjoyed it. There's a beautiful riverfront boardwalk where we spent most of the morning which offered great views, people watching, and an animal park with a number of species to see. We also happened to be in the city on the day of Simon Bolivar's birthday, the man who liberated Ecuador from conquistador rule. We watched the most mobile parade I've ever been to, which started out on the street then everyone went running to the boardwalk so we followed along to find the show continuing by sea and through the air. An oddity was that the entire parade was a collection of police men and women on various forms of transportation as well as on foot. As we walked along the boardwalk, we stumbled upon the filming of the local news. Before we knew it, we were being guided right behind the lead anchor as they recorded a story. So if any of you happened to be watching the Guayaquil news Sunday night, you probably saw us standing in the background sticking out among the Ecuadorian crowd:)
After lunch, we walked to this strange park in the middle of the city. I'm still not sure why, but this park is filled with Iguanas of all shapes, sizes, and colors. We also checked out the historical park, which was a combination of a zoo with a spattering of other seemingly random exhibits including an agricultural model and an old mental hospital.
On Monday, we decided to head out to Playas, a beach town cleverly named...beaches. We rented nice wooden chairs and an umbrella for $2.50 a piece and spent the day relaxing and reading. Though it was a bit too windy out for either of us to be inclined to swim, we enjoyed seeing another part of the country and now I feel like I've pretty much conquered all of Ecuador from the mountains to the rainforest to the ocean.
One strange thing we noticed both in Guayaquil and at the beach was the lack of tourists (we counted 3 others all day Sunday and 2 Monday). Quito is by far the main place for visitors and we were quite the spectacle on this side of the country. We received extra friendly care everywhere we went and even had a police officer ask to take a picture with us! It was kind of nice in a way, because with Quito there's a ton of crime aimed at tourists whereas even though Guayaquil has it's share of crime, we didn't feel like we were going to be singled out due to our skin color.
After making it back to Guayaquil, I hung out at the bus terminal for a while waiting to begin the solo part of my journey. I was a little nervous of taking an overnight bus and wondered if I'd get any sleep at all, but it turned out to be my best experience thus far with South American transportation. I paid an extra $4 to have what they called a bed-seat and it was worth every penny. I ended up sleeping soundly for all but half an hour of the ride and arrived ahead of schedule in Mancora, Peru at 7am.
I grabbed a taxi, or better described as a carriage pulled by a motorcycle, and was welcomed by my hostel. I then spent most of the morning exploring the small beach town and wound up finding a parade here too. It's apparently their indepedence day today-I seem to be pretty talented at unknowingly showing up places when they're having festivals! This one was the school children parade-at least 50 schools with kids dressed up in all different costumes marching, walking, and wandering down the road. I think I'll start to appreciate parades back home and their variety now that I know they're apparently not all like that around the world.
The town itself is pretty cute, with a main street full of shops and restaurants and soft, sandy beaches. I spent most of the afternoon enjoying the beautiful weather hanging out by the pool. The hostel itself is a bit strange and most of the guests speak neither English or Spanish and haven't been very friendly towards me so far. They've been drinking and smoking since early afternoon and the place definitely has more of a party vibe than suits my style. The workers are nice though-the one this morning thought I was Peruvian even after we spoke for a few minutes in Spanish and got confused when he looked at my passport, how exciting!
I head out tomorrow morning at 930 to Trujillo, which is also on the beach but seems to have more of a relaxed vibe to it. I read that my hostel has surfing lessons so I'll definitely be looking in to. Three more cities, one more week, then it's time to go back home.
Pic 1: Lizards in Guayaquil.
Pic 2: Church in Guayaquil.
Pic 3: I got a tattoo at the beach! ...just henna, no worries:)
Pic 4: Part of today's parade in Mancora.
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