Montanita y Guayaquil, 20-26 de Deciembre

40 minutes down the coast from Puerto Lopez was the party & beach town of Montanita, which is where we set up camp for 4 days prior to Xmas. This is a cool spot thats just 3 x 3 blocks big!
Our vitamin D, cocktail and seafood consumption took another upward spike - with feliz hora being all day we thought it rude not to make the most of the local specialties.

Main drag of Montanita

  

Main beach



Cocktail alley - all these little stalls open conventiently in the avo for when
you're especially parched from a day at the beach.

This is a quick and easy blog to write as our days were spent at the beach.
Atlast, for the first time, we gave surfing a proper go.....learnt the hard way not to let go of my board and copped a minor injury to the face but this didn't deter from the fun of it. That'll teach me for letting go of the board! Otherwise Montanita put on some perfectly sized learner waves and we caught the bug. Loved it!!

Last sunset on the west coast of SA for us!

Juan our favourite cocktail maker and our new Canadian buddies Heather and Brandon.
$2 grande mojitos in hand.

Guayaquil

Christmas eve morning we headed back to Guayaquil for Xmas as we had an early flight up to Panama on boxing day.
We actually spent a night here between Mancora to Puerto Lopez - one very frustrating day was spent desperately trying to organise our flight to Panama. It seems in Ecuador you can't book one-way flights as a non-resident and also can't use an international credit card on their website!!
After a day of trasping the agencies we managed to get bums on seats and could move on with our Ecuadorian beach time.

Guayaquil lighthouse in Las Penas.

Cool sculpture naming all the people who donated money to the waterfront development (2.5km long stretch of boardwalk, restuarants, botanical garden and playgrounds etc).



Christmas day picnic on the Melacon 2000 (waterfront promenade) 
Asado (BBQ) for 2, 5.5kg watermelon, strawberries, crackers/dip,
 champagne and a gorgeous fiance. Perfecto!!

We enjoyed a cruisy Christmas for 2!  Slept in, went for a run and then set about creating a feast for lunch. Spent a lot of the day on skype catching up with friends and family all around the world which was brilliant. Managed to get quite a special jingle bells tune going between NZ and Ecuador (with my niece Mya and Grandma/Grandpa). 
Picnic'd the rest of the day away then enjoyed feeding the leftovers to dozens of iguanas.

Never thought I'd be feeding an iguana watermelon with a spoon on Xmas day! They loved it! Guayaquil has this amazing park in the central city that is home to hundreds of iguanas, that were lucky enough to cash in on our excessive amounts of left-over watermelon.

Developed quite a following of kids each time I fed a different iguana.

Much to our surprise, we loved Guayaquil! Being the commercial hub, everybody told us not to even stop there but we found it to be a lovely city with next to no tourists about.
It was definitely a big surprise arriving as it was particularly Americanised - moreso than any city so-far in our travels. Likely stemming from the US having such a big hand in the petroleum industry here. After 10 days in Ecuador, it does appear to be quite a hot spot for american holidaymakers and an increasingly popular place to buy a beach house.

This brings an end to adventures in Ecuador. Sadly the funds and timing didn't stretch as far as the Galapogos Islands this time around......which just means we'll have to come back!

Hi ho hi ho, its off to Panama we go............ to meet up with Dan for 10 days!!