I
was awake early and packed my bag before picking up my book again. Soon Markus
and Sonja appeared to say goodbye. I read some more before going to the
communal area where we had coffee and chatted for a while before starting our
trip to Canoa.
The
trip started with a cab to Puerto Lopez where we got a bus to Manta. I read for
most of the route and looked out the window every now and then. Very quickly
the landscape was far from the jungle we walked through yesterday but rather
very dry. After 2.5 hours we arrived in Manta (a rather large city which I'm
not used to anymore) where we searched for a bus to Canoa. The bus station was
crazy with everyone shouting and rushing around. Sarah went in serach of a bus
but unfortunately it's not as easy as we thought so instead we settled on a bus
to Bahia and find connection from there. As we took a walk to get some food we
found a bus that was going to Canoa but was a little more luxurious (ie had
aircon) and jumped in after grabbing some pastries from a street food stand. In
the bus we were told it would be quicker to go to Portoviejo and change buses
there. So we did.
In
Portoviejo we got off the bus (this station was a little calmer, but not much) and
took a walk to find the next bus and very quickly heard the usual screaming of
destinations. We quickly got ushered to another bus and were told that it was
the last one for the day. At least this one stops in Canoa so we are almost
there.
I
started reading as we got going and after a while had a bit of a nap before
being woken by the numerous people getting on the bus to sell food,
electronics, actually anything! When I woke up we were approaching Bahia. The
scenery was much greener again and after a while there were wetlands where it
seemed like they were farming fish. Eventually we entered Bahia and I was
surprised by the skyline on the one side of the river which had multiple tall
buildings (I assume mainly hotels) and on our side it seemed to be the
residential and poorer area. We eventually got away from Bahia and arrived in
Canoa just after sunset sooner than expected. We didn’t realize that we were in
Canoa when the bus stopped and Sarah noticed that the buildings had Canoa
written on them so we quickly jumped up and grabbed our bags from under the
bus.
We
took a walk towards the beach and to the edge of town to find a hostel someone
had told us about. We ended up at Baloo where we dropped our bags and headed to
the bar for some WiFi and a much needed beer (the name is a little different to
the one we were told about but I think it’s actually the same one).
We
then made our way to a restaurant down the road, well actually on the beach,
where we had some fish. We then took a walk back to the main road where we
found a tienda where we got some coke for the remainder of our rum and made out
way back to the hostel. There wasn't much open and it was still before 10 and
not nearly bed time so we sat outside our room sheltered from the rain (a few
drops) enjoying our rum and coke. We were joined by some fellow guests at the
hostel before we all decided to call it a night.
I
then lay in bed reading and catching up on some WiFi before getting some sleep
at about 2.