Day Nineteen - Cuenca to Montanita

We were up very early this morning to have a quick breakfast at the hostel and then headed to the bus station in Cuenca. We didn't know what the time buses left so winged it a bit, arriving at the bus terminal at 8:45. The next bus, it transpired was at 9:50!! The guy however then rushed us through the terminal and bundled us onto a bus for Quayaquil. Twenty minutes later, the bus left and we thought our luck was in!

Sadly this wasn't the case! The bus that we'd boarded was the local bus, going the longer way back to Quayaquil and making many many stops along the way! We've been on quite a few buses by this point, but this one was by far the worst! The guy behind me managed to pull my hair getting in and out of his seat, a lady spat over me leaning forward to speak to someone in front, people who didn't have seats were standing in the aisle leaning into you (I wasn't next to the window!) and about 3 children throughout the journey just stood and stared at me constantly. All in all, not a fun experience!!

We finally arrived in Quayaquil over 5 hours later around 2:30. We bought another ticket to Montanita and waited in the huge terminal building for this bus to arrive. As we were waiting two men were hovering around. As it turns out, we were just being overly suspicious but they waited until the end to board their 'luggage' and kept eyeing our bags and speaking to each other in undertones!

The bus arrived and we were finally on our way to the infamous Montanita! We drove out of the city and towards the coast, along windy roads and eventually passing small shanty towns with literally nothing there! It's unbelievable that a place as buzzing as Montanita can be so close to a place as poor and neglected as some of those we passed.

Montanita was cool. We arrived just as it was getting dark and we're bombarded with people trying to sell us their hostel rooms as we got off the bus. We'd prebooked a dorm in a hostel called ChiChi Babylone only a short walk away so made our way to there along the only main street in the town. When we arrived, the girl who helped run it welcomed us to the 'ChiChi family', showed us around and settled us into the room. We were in a dorm but able to move to a private room the following day.

We dropped our bags in the room, and went back out to the bar/common area to try and mingle with the rest of the group. We got chatting to an Aussie guy and some German girls who were all really friendly. Later on, we went out to get some pizza ($3 for a sizeable mini pizza) and have a quick wander down 'Cocktail Alley'. They have little wooden stalls lining the street where you can essentially have any cocktail you like for $3, and they're pretty strong. Quite similar to the beach bars in Thailand selling buckets for 200 Baht!

Back at the hostel, we settled in for the evening playing card games and chatting to our new friends!! Everyone headed out around midnight, but after such a long day, we just wanted to get our heads down so snuggled into our single bunk bed and were out immediately!