We continued going south for 200km to Loja after enjoying another good breakfast at our place. Seemed to take forever to get there and found our hotel just on the outskirts of town. Had a large room with three beds and a TV and a decent bathroom but it was very clean and the owner couldn't do enough for us.
There are no real attractions here and no tourists and dont know why we came here but it's the last big town before Peru, which is 150km further south. We walked around the town and being Saturday it was busy with all the locals shopping and what have you and we were the only Gringo's around. We found a real nice restaurant for food and libation and had some tasty pork ribs for dinner with a beer and Charmain woofed down some chicken and mushrooms with rice and salad.
On Sunday it rained most of the day and had to sneak out between showers for lunch and then watched the Patriots win another Super Bowl !
Well that was Loja, just another normal Ecuadorian town which was fairly clean and friendly. The hotel served healthy portions of fruit salad and juice with milk coffee, scrambled eggs and toast and there was nobody else staying there, I sure feel for the owner because i don't know how they survive.
We left Loja for Guayaquil which was quite a drive going over the Andes, took four hours going over all the passes and dropping down to the coast and then another four hours along the coastal road to Guayaquil. We arrived at 5pm and the roads were all snarled up bit we found a hotel, was not ideal but it turned out to be okay in the end and we stayed two nights. We were a ten minute walk to where the riverfront restaurants are through a little sketchy area but it was fine. Found some surprisingly good food and a Pisco Sour so Charmain was happy.
The following day we walked the entire promenade which is maybe 2.5km and it was hot and muggy. There is a small hill with colorful houses on and from the top you have a great view of the city. Charmain didn't want to walk up so I went and tried to go up the stairs and an old man sitting nearby indicated to me I can't go up there, and then with his index finger slashed his throat several times , so I moved on. I then found nother set of stairs and proceeded up them with two policemen and they questioned me and then escorted me to the safe area and told me not to leave that particuar staircase. I proceeded up 444 stirs to the top of the hill where you had panaromic vies of the city. On my way down i tried to go off the main path and and locl girl stopped me and made the throat slashing gesture and pointed where I was to go, so I giess it ws not a place to mess with, never had that happen before.
We then found the iguana park and the main church in the city which ws being pinted by about ten guys dangling from ropes with a six inch paintbrush.
Guayaquil is the largest city in Ecuador and has nothing really for tourists to see or do except for the river promenade which they have done a great job of, but other than that it comes with the squalor and stench and poverty like the rest of South America .
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