MISADVENTURES IN MACHALA

Chuck, Nancy, Jim and I set out for a trip to the beach on Wednesday. Chuck had learned about a resort on an island off of the coastal town of Machala. It's called El Faro. Here's the link http://www.elfaro.com.ec/indexingles.html We planned to stay there two nights. We started out on the Azuay Express Bus. Express means only that it didn't stop for long in the town of Pasaje. This sign on the bus didn't inspire much confidence.

Basically it says, if you are going to barf, use the bag. (Unfortunately, Nancy had a seat mate who had to use his bag).

As we left the bus station, the bus crept along Ave. de las Americas. At first I thought there was a lot of traffic, but no, everyone else was whizzing by us. I finally figured out that the bus was trolling for more passengers, as we had a very light load. I think I was correct, because as we got to Feria Libre, the huge market, we stopped for quite awhile and our bus "conductor" was leaning out the door the whole time urging people on.

We finally got to the outskirts of Cuenca when a vendor/hawker got on with his briefcase. This man stood at the front of the bus, and in a voice which projected to the rear, spent the next 20-25 minutes orating about his wonderful product. He went on and on about all the things it would do in general, and then addressed his remarks to the men, regarding the prostate, and then to the women and girls regarding female problems. The part that caught my attention right away was when he opened his notebook to the page that said in big letters HECHO DE UNAS DE GATO. Translated this means made from cat's nails (claws). Well, my imagination took off. I was amazed that most of the folks in the bus were paying attention to this snake oil salesman. Here's a photo that Nancy took (I wasn't brave enough) showing how his wonderful product would take care of your organs.

In the way of vendors aboard buses in latin countries, once he got near the end of his spiel, he handed out a bottle of his product to each person on the bus. So, I had a chance to look at the label of ingredients. Sure enough, cat's claws...and also dragon's blood. Hmm. Meantime, the lady sitting next to Chuck was telling him that this was really good stuff. I shook the bottle and I could hear all those little claws clicking around in there and all I could think about was, how do they harvest the claws? And, are they domestic cats or big cats? I was tempted to buy a bottle but didn't. The guys sold lots and lots of bottles on that bus.

It didn't occur to me until MUCH later, that cat's claw and dragon's blood were probably the names of plants. Indeed, I did a Google search and learned that Cat's Claw is a plant which grows in the Amazon that has been used for thousands of years to cure the very things our salesman was talking about -immune problems, gastritis, ulcers, cancer, rheumatism, arthritis, pain, inflammation....I guess the guy knew what he was talking about. Dragon's blood is also plant which has been used for medicinal purposes since Roman times.

A ways down the highway we came to a real slow down. It became apparent what the cause was as we neared a bridge - a large truck was turned on its side, with the cab down a ravine. This isn't the greatest picture, but you can see some of the truck and the guy is looking down at the cab.


At this point in the journey, the bus was HURTLING down the Andes. Going around curves one had to hang on, and some luggage in the overhead bins fell out. All along the road we let people out and let people on. At one point there was standing room only. This bus company really got their money's worth out of that route.

3 and 1/2 hours later we arrived in Machala, which is known as "the beach" as it is on the ocean. It was HOT and HUMID (we saw one sign which read 31 degrees C, which is approximately 88 degrees F). Chuck tried to call the resort but it was lunchtime so they didn't answer. We took a taxi to a great seafood restaurant called Pepe's at Puerto Bolivar for lunch. Here was the view from our table.

We also could see three freighters in port loading bananas from cranes on the boats (no infrastructure of cranes or container loading from land).

Machala is a major banana port. Not only were these three freighters in port being loaded, but many more were anchored out waiting their turn, such as this one, which we assumed would be bringing bananas to Russia.

Also, lots of fishing boats like these shrimpers.

The restuarant's menu was in Spanish and English, which was a cause of much amusement. For example, what would you think Krub's Nails are?

Didn't guess, did you? One has to read the Spanish to know that these are crab claws. In fact, I ordered Pepe's Plate and I wasn't surprised that there was no crab because when Chuck ordered the crab with eggs item on the menu he was told, "crab are finished." In any case, even without the Krub's nails, my meal was delicious.

I had calamari, sea bass, clams and shrimp, along with "seafood rice" which was yummy too.

Here are some of the other dishes, all excellent.


These huge entrees were around $8 each.

It took awhile for our lunch to come, but we remained entertained by the unfolding tableaux in front of us. First, on the quay, there were more lonely horses awaiting their riders (for photo ops).
Then, we watched these two guys tie up their boats and go ashore in an unusual way.



Then there was kitty. He was mooching around the tables, getting orts off the floor. Here he is waiting patiently for something to fall.

I'm afraid Jim and I are softies when it comes to winsome kitties. We gave him some niblets from our lunch and he rewarded us by continually leaping up to Jim's lap to ask for more. He was so quick with his leaps that I couldn't capture him with a photo, but I did get him licking his lips

and asking for more.


After this EXCELLENT lunch we rolled out of the restaurant and Chuck tried to call the resort again. He was still unable to reach anyone. It wasn't quite three PM yet, so we figured the folks at the resort where still at siesta. We got a taxi to take us to the Yacht Club, which is where we were to be picked up by the boat from the resort.

A word now about the resort. It is an "all found" resort, including being picked up at the Yacht Club, all meals, and the use of an ATV. Here's the description from the web page, "We...have two fresh water swimming pools, open areas, outside fitting rooms with showers, a large restaurant for over one hundred people where it is possible to enjoy the exquisite gastronomy of Ecuador, a bar with variety of drinks, different type of music and sea front ‘Hamacas’ where you can rest and enjoy the view. Beach soccer and volleyball fields are part of El Faro Playa & Spa. In our resort you can walk along narrow paths inside a dry forest in which different types of endemic birds and reptiles live. Other sport activities as quadroons (bad translation for ATV), jet sky, kayaks are also available." As you can imagine, we had really high hopes for this resort.

Here's a look a the Yacht Club where we were awaiting our boat.


Here are the yachts.

Hmm. I guess they just use the yacht club for dances and such.

A helpful women in an office stated that the boat would be coming at 3:25 pm. At 3:30 pm Chuck called the resort again and finally got ahold of someone who insisted that we didn't have reservations because Chuck hadn't deposited anything into their bank account. Chuck told her no one had ever called with their bank account number. The upshot was that the manager, who spoke English, would call Chuck back.

It was still HOT and HUMID and not looking good. The manager called back. No, they couldn't come pick us up today. They could tomorrow at 10 AM, which is when the boat normally comes. We could take the regular ferry to the island and they could pick us up from that, but not today. It didn't matter that Chuck told them we had come all the way from Cuenca and just arrived in the afternoon. It didn't matter that the website implied that one could get a boat from the Yacht Club at any time. It didn't matter that they were going to lose $500 worth of business. We all decided that we didn't want to go there the next day, for one night only. We didn't feel like they really wanted us there.

So, we took another taxi to the downtown area of Machala and got a room for the night in a basic hotel that had a pool and air conditioning, but no hot water. We were so hot and sticky that we didn't care about the hot water. After a bit of cooling off around the pool, Chuck, Nancy and I headed out to a place (air conditioned) which served food and had ice cream. We all had batidos, which are heavenly blended concoctions like smoothies, make of fruit and milk, but are thick like milkshakes. Yum! Then we went a block away to the Casino. Yes, slot machines from Las Vegas. The one I was playing said "Ballys" on the top. The noise and smoke in there was intolerable as I had a headache. Also, I wasn't doing well on my machine and wanted to cash out. It said I had to call an attendant to "hand pay." What a pain in the rear. She came over and wrote on a tablet the number of the machine and the amount, had me write my name, then took this over to another woman at a window who did who knows what with the paper. Then she took the paper to the cashier window. Then she took the paper to the back room to be signed. Then she brought the paper back to me and tore off a small part. I took this to the same cashier and got my $8.75 paid out. All of this took about 10 minutes. That did it for me at the Casino so I went back to the hotel. By this time it was raining pretty heavily, which did nothing to reduce the humidity or cool things off.

This morning we got up bright and early and decided to walk to the bus station, as it was only a few blocks. We got part way there and Chuck wasn't exactly sure where it was, so asked several women walking by. One didn't know but the other one said, "follow me." She was a hot chica with skin tight pants and a walk that showed her stuff. She was very nice and took us to a different bus station than the one we came in at. This turned out to be a really good thing! We got on the luxury bus back to Cuenca. It was AIR CONDITIONED - yay! Also, they showed a movie (too bad it was Adam Sandler) and served free Coca Cola. This was the Ruta Orenses line. Here is our conductress getting ready to air the movie.

On this luxury bus there was no luggage falling and the ride was smooth.

As mentioned earlier, Machala is a banana port, and Ecuadorian bananas are imported all over the world. This is what the area around Machala looks like.

Our wonder bus stopped in the town near Machala called Pasaje. These stocks of bananas were waiting to be loaded on our bus.


They were obviously quite heavy as it took two people to load them into the cargo hold.

From the bus we saw not only miles and miles of bananas, but also papaya and mango trees, among others.

I think we were all happy when the bus started climbing toward the Andes and the air grew less humid.

It's really beautiful terrain.


We had a short stop for snacks at a wayside place and I saw these unusual bumper stickers.

Lots and lots of Ecuadorian men move to New York and drive taxis, often many of them living crammed together in a small apartment so they can save money. After a few years of this they have saved enough money to come back to Ecuador and build a nice house.

We have one of these Angel Trumpet bushes in our front yard that barely survives in our climate. They are obviously happier at the equator.


Typical Andes scene.

Both Jim and I photographed this house going to Machala and coming back to Cuenca. It is typical of Ecuadorian construction to wait until construction is finished to put in the windows.

I felt really happy to see this neighborhood sight, Feria Libre, because it meant we were almost home.


We arrived home less than 24 hours after our arrival in Machala. We never got to our resort, but sure had a lot of adventures along the way (like we always do in Ecuador).

Audrey