We left Mancora at 10 am, again with bus company Cruz del Sur, with destination the big busy city of Guyaquil. After about 2 hours on the bus, we stopped by the border and did all that border control stuff. The Peruvians and the Ecuadorians shared office here so you got to leave and enter these countries at the same place. It wasn't that cool feeling of walking over the border over to another country though, the bus did that for us.
The border crossing took about 2 hours and after that we had another 5 hours in the bus before arriving to the humongous bus terminal in Guyaquil. We only chose to stop by here because I had to go for a visa interview at the us embassy in order to be able to visit my brother in Chicago later on this year (because of the changed rules you have to apply for a visa at least 3 months in advance and go through an interview to apply for a tourist visa if you been in Iran after 2011, which I have). Because other than that is not that much to do in this city. It's just really REALLY hot all the time and nowhere around to really go for a swim.
So we were super stoked just to find that our hostel Dreamkapture had the tiniest little pond of a pool that we took much advantage of.
Other than that we didn't do much while in Guyaquil so I don't have much to report back about. The hostel we stayed at was in an area quite far outside of the actual city center, but it was still a pretty busy area.
We did struggle a lot to find vegan food around here. The restaurants close by were running the same kind of theme; meat, meat and chicken. Most places didn't have one single veggie option even. So we decided to take the matter into our own hands and had my favourite kind of home made meals over here in South America: toasts with avocado. It just can't go wrong and it's the cheapest best lunch to have.
We did however become loyal customers to the only place that actually had vegetarian options, inside of City Mall a few blocks away, which we loved mostly for its awesome air-condition but also because of this little Mexican gem in the middle of the big food court (I usually really don't like food courts, they always makes me feel like I'm sitting in a school cafeteria and it's just not a cosy atmosphere, but hey, if good vegan food is at stake I guess I can tolerate it).
The owner became our best friend immidately when he understood loud and clear exactly what veganism was, and happily changed some of the dishes to become vegan friendly (he had some vegetarian options already on the menu, like enchiladas, burritos etc). I tried the personal copa with loads of guacamole on top of a mix of black beans, mushrooms, green pepper and tomato sauce with nachos on the side. Another night he recommended the Aztec tortilla soup made vegan, which was basically just tomato soup with nachos mixed into it with avocado chunks on top. It sounds so gross to have softened nachos in a soup but it was actually really yum!
Who would have thought that Tijuna Express inside of a big shopping mall would become our favourite place in Guyaquil?
On of the Mexicans neighbours was the coffee chain Sweet & Coffee which absolutely blew my mind when I tried their Chocolate Frio (cold chocolate milk!) with soy milk because it tastes just like melted chocolate ice cream and I've been craving ice cream for so long in this heat. It's also really rare to be able to find places that has soy milk so only that made me jump of happiness.
It was a bit expensive though, 4 dollars for a drink that finished in like 5 minutes. But still. You can really tell that it's a bit more expensive here than in Peru and Bolivia. Well at least food wise, accommodation we found is actually cheaper than places we've been to in Peru.
Another thing I find a bit strange is how they only use US dollars in Ecuador, they do have like their own coins which they don't use in USA, but it's still US dollars. This might be why some stuff cost more here.
Anyway, we left Guyaquil as soon as we could after my interview to head towards the beach side again. This time to the famous surf town Montañita.
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