Guayaquil y Riobamba

On Thursday night at 10 pm Anna and I left from Quito to Guayaquil on a bus that lasted about 8 hours. Before that we attended an ecuadorian friend´s birthday party at his house. The bus ride wasn´t too bad but the climate in the bus kept changing. I could not get comfortable. It was either really hot or really cold and we used our towels to warm ourselves. Also, apparently every bus ride it is mandatory to show a really violent movie... you see, every single bus ride we´ve had with a movie, it´s been extremely violent...and in two of them has been the same random blond muscle man actor. To say the least, I generally sleep during these movies...
So we got to guayaquil and got a hotel room for $17 total with a giant bed and a small bed. Then we wandered around guayaquil. We went to Simón Bolivar park where there are tons of iguanas and turtles wandering around. The iguanas are also in the trees and every few minutes they pee or poo like buckets! Sorry to be gross, but I nearly got shat on and so did a lot of other passerbys.
There is a really nice boardwalk along the river called Malecón 2000... it´s really fancy. Then there are a bunch of little market areas scattered around with generally the same touristy items. It was pretty warm in Guayaquil.. skirt and tshirt weather. A lot of people say Guayaquil is dangerous but i felt really safe. If you walk to the end of Malecón there is this little town on a hill called Peñas that is super cute! All of the houses are painted different colors and it´s just the nicest town I´ve ever seen. A lot of artists live there and there are about 500 stairs leading up to this lighthouse at the top of the hill and they are all numbered... it was a great view at the top as well!
So it turns out Guayaquil is not very vegetarian friendly. Lonely planet named some veg restaurants but were very innacurate. One no longer existed and the other did not serve veg food! We ended up going to an expensive restaraunt which had a salad for me. Expensive means $7. haha.
Guayaquil was great but only for a day and a half I think...
So originally we were planning to go to the beach on Saturday but we heard there was a strike or something so we decided to go to Riobamba, which is in between Quito and Guayaquil.. this way we didn't have such an awful long bus ride on Sunday!
Riobamba was very cute and simple. We stayed in a great hostal called Hostal Oasis. The rooms were really cute, the owners were sweet, there was a garden, and they had a cute little dog Lila, and they drove us to the bus station on Sunday for free!
In Riobamba we went to the market on Saturday which was mostly food. There were many indigenous women walking around their pigs to sell. I think we were two of the few gringos in Riobamba that day. The market was nice, then we got lunch at a vegetarian place which was good. I contemplated in getting my hair cut because there was a barber shop literally every other store front, but I decided against it because I was cold and I didn't want to get my hair wet. so instead I got my nails done for $1.50. Afterwards we went to a pizzeria to watch the ecuador vs. venezuela soccer game which was heartbreaking!!! We dominated the game but venezuela got a super lucky goal and ended up winning 1-0. We watched a movie in our hotel and went to bed. It wasn't the most action packed weekend, but I had fun and I didn't spend much money!
I really want to return to Riobamba sometime soon to go hiking because I've heard it's great hiking and also I want to go on this famous train called Nariz del Diablo, but it's about 7 hours long so we didn't really have time before.
I have two more exams on Tuesday and then I'm done for a while!!
Next weekend I'm going to Cotopaxi and Tunguragua (volcanoes) for my volcanology class. Then the next weekend I'm going to skip class and go to this thing called the Quilatoa Loop for 4 days.. It's amazing hiking and it should be great and not much money again! Unless I buy a lot at the market ofcourse!
Also, it didn't rain today in Quito which was really nice because I still haven't bought an umbrella!
Hasta Luego!