Globe Corner Blogs

I recently traveled to Ecuador with a friend…and went without a plan.  We decided against one of the more traditional Ecuadorian travel destinations, with saddened hearts, but happy wallets – the Galapagos was just not a budget travel destination.  We decided instead to do an Amazon trek followed by some coastal R&R.  I think I had a more lively time this way. (And I certainly encountered more bugs.)

Fleeing the jungle and heading toward the coast with pre-primed sunburns and enough mosquito bites to look like smallpox victims, we arrived in Manta to the smell of fish factories, and the greeting of a statue in the town’s center – a large tuna and tuna can on a stick like a massive kebab.  A large-ish town filled with swimming pools, fish markets and discotheques, we unfortunately didn’t stay long enough to experience more of Manta’s flavor than that.

Early one morning we took our cab driver, Hugo, a short, jovial man, and his yellow mini-SUV taxi shopping in Montichristi.  It is a quaint, white washed and cobblestoned town with a gorgeous cathedral set among hills and has a collective chip on its shoulder. The streets are lined with vendors so unwilling to budge on prices that they would rather see you go across the street than pay them $1 less.  Hammocks, wooden figurines, necklaces, more hammocks and the infamous Montichristi “Panama” hat are all for sale from every Montichristi tiendas. But then again, maybe it has a right to be grumpy.

Panama hats, popularized during the building of the Panama canal – should rightfully be called Montichristi (or at least Ecuador) hats, for it is here that the original Panama hats were and still are made.  The hats are made with varying grades of fino- the thickness of the strands of palm woven to create the hat.  The most expensive and fino of the bunch feel almost like linen and can take one worker up to three months to make.  With Hugo in tow, we visited one of these factories and tried on an array of sunhats, while he sat on a teal plastic chair with a bemused smirk on his face.

I picked out a less fino hat in my price range and walked out into the bright sun.  Two hours, one church, one sacred Mary statue and three hammocks later we were rolling past terrain that looked more like Arizona than the coastal lushness I’ve come to expect with my ‘ocean retreats’.  Sand was speckled with dry brush and cacti as far as the eye could see – until we saw the ocean like an oasis. It was only a few small roadside stalls selling sea shells until we reached Puerto Lopez.

We stayed in Puerto Lopez three nights and used it as a jumping-off point for the nearby attractions: the party town of Montanita, a sacred Sulfur pool and archaeological site, a national park beach (which differed only from Puerto Lopez’s town beach in the lack of fishing boats moored offshore) and the “Poor Man’s Galapagos.”

The “Poor Man’s Galapagos” was, I’m sure, a far cry from the real thing, but we left satisfied having seen blue and red footed boobies and sea lions. I even got in my share of mediocre diving (hey, you can’t expect the real thing when you’re paying poor-man’s prices).

Despite this, Ecuador’s mid-coastal region was a refreshing retreat.  It was not swarming with tourists, and those that we did see were from other parts of Ecuador and nearby South American countries.  It provided non-standard scenery and felt closer to “the real Ecuador” than what those sorry blokes branding themselves  in the Galapagos sun were experiencing.  Still, I knew it was time to return to the cold Boston weather when the rains set in – and the locusts.  Driven mad by the nightly bombardment of insanely large grasshoppers, I hoisted my 50lb backpack, filled with hammocks and Panama hats, back on the plane and into the snow where all of my trinkets immediately became useless in the cold.

Read more: Beach Travel, Ecuador, Galapagos, Panama, South America, Travel


Meghan went around the world in 2006, and is dying to do it again. Meghan loves all things ocean and enjoys scuba diving in exotic locales.

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