Why Ecuador?

I always said I wanted to spend my retirement years watching the sun set over the ocean. And here I am, retirement age, living about 3 miles inland with a not very good view of the sunset and no view of the ocean.

Bored with the usual TV options one night, I tuned to HGTV's Househunters International and we watched someone buy beachfront property in Ecuador for $60,000. Oh! Maybe my sunsets aren't out of reach after all!

So we plotted ... and just returned from two weeks driving the coast of Ecuador. No hotel reservations, no plans, just two old hippies in a rental car. This is what we found.

Nights 1 & 2, Salinas

I have to admit, I don't travel well, so by the time we landed in Guayaquil, I was ready for a rest. We spent the first two nights in Salinas at the Hotel Marvento. We'd never thought of stopping in Salinas. It's just a convenient place to catch our breath and find our bearings.

The hotel is clean and modern, the water in the shower gets warm eventually, WiFi is spotty. The bed is hard; the pillow is harder. The key card for the room stops working and needs to be reprogrammed at least twice a day. Breakfast, included in the price of the room, was cold scrambled eggs, cold rolls, a glass of juice, and a cup of hot water with jars of Nescafe and Swiss Miss on the table for your pleasure.

In general, I've divided most of the cities and towns we visited as either poor-but-prideful or mid-century-shabby, and Salinas definitely falls to the shabby end of the spectrum. Sidewalks are in horrible disrepair. But the beach is wide, clean, and well cared for - and full of vacationers!

It was in this little sidewalk grill across the street from the beach in Salinas where I had my first (and second) taste of Arroz con Camarones. OMGYum! My tastebuds fell in love!