Day 237 – Sunday 14th May 2006

I woke up early and decided to make my way north. There was no specific reason for this, I just decided that I wanted to get to Colombia as soon as possible, and hanging around in beach towns was not really conducive to achieving this.

To get north to Colombia meant passing through Ecuador. In this part of the world even a small country is actually not that small. It took me two hours to get to the border in a small VW minibus. I left the bus, took another shuttle to the border and was immediately accosted by a local guy trying to guide me across the border. I had been emailed by the Swedes and warned of this scam so I was ready for all that was coming.

He explained that the border was particularly bad and dangerous, however if he helped me no such harm would come to me.

I went into the border control of Peru and got my exit stamp, before walking about a mile through a crowded market to the offices of a local bus company where I could take the bus to Guayaguil, first stopping off at the Ecuadorian border control a few miles out of town.

The lad offered to carry my big bag so I let him (the day was boiling hot) and he guided me through the streets to the bus offices. When we got there he made the effect of asking for payment, as the Swedes said he would. I knew it was coming so wasn’t bothered, and in reality he had helped me out so I gave him and his mate $5 for their trouble.

As soon as I gave him the money he was off out of the traps like a greyhound!

I had a few minutes to kill before the bus left so I bought some food from the handy food stall which happened to be right at the entry point to the bus. A $1.25 meal later (by the way the official currency of Ecuador is the US Dollar) and the bus was ready to leave.

Not much happened on the bus, except as usual I asked how many hours it was and was told 4. The actual time was more like 6. I am not sure if the people lie on purpose or the buses really do get delayed by such long times, but every bus and every conductor is the same!

So 6 hours later, about 5pm, I arrived in Guayaguil without a clue as to where to stay. Usually there is some form of internet near the bus station but this wasn’t the case in Guayaguil. I was left to ask taxi drivers for hostels, as they either tried to rip me off or take me to the wrong place. I stood there and asked about 20 people before one guy seemed to know what he was talking about so I got in and he took me to a hostel. He still charged me too much but at least I got to something like the kind of place I wanted to be in.

Guayaguil is mainly a stopping off point for people looking to do Galapagos Island tours and as a result the number of tour operators is growing. I wasn’t looking to do such a tour and as such it was kind of just a stopping off point for me on my way to Quito.

The hostel was ok, the people staying there were decent enough and I had a chat about the forthcoming world cup over a few beers, shared a pizza and generally spoke about travelling before I made my way to bed.