Los Frailes , Puerto Lopez, Cristina's big scare and back to Montinita

We checked out of our sweet hotel, and after breakfast started walking North on the Ruta de Sol, that's the name of the main highway running all the way up Ecuador is coast. With our thumbs in the air the plan was the same as always hopefully get picked up before the bus comes! Within 10 minutes the man with the pick up drove us to the next small town of Olon. Within minutes again and ex-pat couple picked us up and drove us a few more km's to another small beach town. Before too long again, a truck full of people headed north offered to give us a ride rate to Puerto Lopez! The road goes up to the jungle a little bit and as we were coming through the jungle part the driver started to slow down and came to a stop. As I looked around the passenger side of the vehicle to maybe see if there was a problem with one of the tires the man behind the driver got out with his shirt covering his face and pretending his cell phone was a gun!!! The joke only lasted one or two seconds but it was enough for Cristina's heart rate to probably triple! I didn't see the man with his shirt on his face or the pretend gun so I thought it was a hilarious joke!!!..... Cristina on the other hand, did not!!! Had I seen the man I probably wouldn't have thought it was so funny either!
After she calmed down and I quit laughing we decided since they were driving right past Los Frailes beach we would get a ride there and just take our backpacks with us. It's about 4 km down a dirt road from the highway to the beach and there are tuk-tuk drivers waiting there to take you for $1 each thank goodness. The walk would have not been an enjoyable one as it was really hot today! The beach is beautiful and supposedly one of the nicest in all of Ecuador. We stayed at the beach for about two hours and just walked down to the end and back. Of course I hiked up my shorts to get some sun on the white thighs! Haha We got the tuk-tuk back to the highway and started walking towards Puerto Lopez. Before too long again, a nice family picked us up in their SUV, with A/C!!! I don't remember the last time A/C felt so good!!!
The nice man drove us right down to the Malecon in Puerto Lopez, so we didn't have to walk far to find a beachside seafood restaurant. It turned out to be quite a bad dining experience so that put a bit of a bad taste in our mouths of Puerto Lopez right off the start! We walked along the Malecon looking for a nice place to stay and checked out a few but we're not impressed! We decided Montanita was much nicer and after checking out the pier we walked back to the highway and a family in a pick up truck gave us a ride all the way back to Montanita!
Back in Montinita the first thing we did was buy bus tickets for the next day back to Guayaquil, then went back to the awesome hotel we checked out of hoping our room hadn't been taken by someone else. The man was a little confused to see us again but we explained Montanita was a nicer place for us and our room was available! Sweet!
I had a much-needed refreshing swim in the ocean, we went out for supper and had another great night!