Initial plans...First task: lugging about 400 lbs of luggage into our small hotel room... complete. Second task: sleep... done. Third task: register our visas the following morning... in progress, perhaps for a long time.
After months of preparation and anticipation, Liz and I arrived in Quito on June 12th, 2012. This is it, beginning of our 2 year adventure in Ecuador. The first morning after we got here, we headed to the immigration office to register our visas. We have done our research and knew that we had to register our visas within 30 days or pay a $200 fine. So after a quick breakfast we walked to the office, got in line and told the clerk what we wanted to do.
Us: "Queremos registrar nuestros visas (we would like to register our visas)"
Clerk: "no puede hoy, regresara lunes (can´t today, return monday)
Us: "porque lunes (why monday?)
clerk: blah blah blah blah blah (it was gibberish to us too)
It was wednesday and we had plane reservation to fly to the Galapagos islands on saturday so this put a wrinkle on our plans. We spent the next few hours at the airline office getting our flight changed back (at a cost of course) so we could come back on Monday and register our visas. However, the next day (thursday) we decided to try asking again why at the immigration office.
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| Plaza Foch, the main tourist plaza in the mariscal district of Quito |
Us: "Queremos registrar nuestros visas (we would like to register our visas)"
Clerk (same one as yesterday): "no puede hoy, regresara miercoles (can´t today, return wednesday)
Us: "porque miercoles (why wednesday?)
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| the view of the city from our window |
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| our street, our apartment is where the car is parked on the right, that is our security guard |
At this point, having received 2 different answers in 2 days, we decided to just forget about registering our visas and dealing with it when time comes. Since we had just moved back our plane tickets to Galapagos and had a few days we headed to the coast for some beach and surfing, the popular surfing town of Montanita.
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| this is a typical hotel, cost $15/night |
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| fresh ceviche right on the beach |
I have to say I was a bit dissapointed in the town. I´ve heard lots of great things about it and a few surfing friends told me I have to surf there. For the couples days I was there, the waves were crummy, the town was impossible to sleep at night with the pumping disco, and the whole town had a sewer problem (so it always wreaked). There was a nice beach and a nice vibe of tourists and locals but the lack of quality waves was the major dissapointment for me. Liz tried surfing for the first time and she was a great sport but its a tough sport to learn. The town was obviously very catered towards tourists so it didnt feel very authentic to me as well. But even so we enjoyed our few days, eating fresh ceviches on the beach, going for a run on the beach at sunset and just enjoying being near the ocean. But after a few days in town we headed north an hour to a fishing town of Puerto Lopez to go whale watching.
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| the sleepy fishing village of puerto lopez, about an hour north of montanita |
Our whale watching tour ($35) included a hour and twenty minute ride to the "Isla de Plata" (silver island) where we would have a chance to see Humpback whales, a quick hike around the island (aka: poor man´s galapagos) to see some birds and a boat ride back. We weren´t dissapointed as we saw a few whales and on the island saw the famous "Piqueros Patas Azules" (blue footed boobies).
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| Isla de la plata, the poor mans galapagagos |
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| the blue footed boobie piquero patas azules |
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| red frigate bird |
After Puero Lopez we returned to Quito and toured around Old town Quito. We really liked it. They had beautiful colonial buildings, narrow cobblestone streets and lots of nice stores and restaurants. We only spent a night in Quito before packing up again and heading to the Galapagos... finally!
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| one of the beautiful colonial buidlings in old town quito |
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| inside the cathedral |
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