Basically two travel days so not as much excitement to report.
We checked out of the Reina Isabel hotel in Quito and wandered the streets for a couple of hours before taking our taxi to the airport. The Quito international airport is 40km away from the city which can take anywhere from 1-2 hours depending on traffic. Our cab driver got us there in 40 minutes; traffic was light and he knew the shortcuts. Just a year ago, a new 6 lane highway was comple ted which makes the journey much quicker.
Checking was was quick and efficient and the couple of hours we waited at the airport went quickly. Our flight was on time and within an hour we were at the Guayaquil airport and enroute to the Sonesta Hotel. I was able to get a smoking deal on Booking.com for this 5* hotel. We enjoyed a great dinner of seafood and wine and the. Stopped at the bar for a nightcap. Next to us in the ballroom was a grade 12 graduation party about to begin. It was so cool to watch the young giggly girls and nervous fellows dressed to the hilt preparing to begin their entrance.
By 11:00pm, these two much older folk were tucked in bed and sleeping..
We slept in until about 7:30am and took our time heading down for breakfast. The buffet was very good and before long it was time to head to the bus station, just minutes away for our journey from Guayaquil to Mancora, Peru.
We arrived in plenty of time and settled into our VIP seats and departed right on time. Oh I love the luxury tourist buses so much better than the other ones!!
It was an overcast drizzly day in Guayaquil (although still 28C) and the journey was uneventful until we noticed we were climbing quite rapidly to higher altitudes. I don’t remember any altitude change when we bused to Guayaquil so though this was strange. We reached 4000m and I didn’t pay much attention as the motion of the bus and altitude were making me feel sick.
About the time we should have arrived at the Ecuador/Peru border we were still driving for what seemed like forever and still too high in altitude. As time wore on Fero and I thought we were on yet another bus ride from hell and our driver was lost! As it turns out a bridge near Machala (the most direct route) had been washed out in recent rains and we had to detour through the Andes. Ahhhhh that makes sense but didn’t make us any happier as it added another 5 hours on to our journey!
We finally reached the border at midnight and by the time we at dinner it was 1:30am and we arrived in Mancora at 4:00am which should have been 11:00pm.
We took a mototaxi to the Los Corales Hotel. A mototaxis is a motorcycle front end with a seating area for two and luggage rack at the back; somewhat similar to a tuk tuk. They are a special design made right here in Mancora. We arrived at the locked gate an thankfully the security guard let us in and gave us our room key.
The room is clean, comfortable and basic but does have a lovely balcony with an ocean front view. We shower and fall fast asleep to the sound of the pounding waves of the Pacific.
