From Guayaquil airport, we took two buses, rammed full, with people standing in the aisles, a spanish movie blaring and the second of which was slowing down (NB. not stopping) every couple of hundred meters to drop-off or pick-up locals, to reach our next destination - Montanita! With no accomodation and everything seemingly booked-up online, we were a bit nervous to be arriving so late at night, but just before we walked into the throng of people in one of the arterial streets, a lady materialised out of nowhere and asked us if we needed somewhere to stay for the night!

We followed her to a little bungalow set back from the main street up a dodgy step ladder and with a tin roof set 30cm higher than the end of the walls. After a cursory investigation for bed bugs, we took it for the night. (I later learned that my investigation process is pretty futile as the bed bags are attracted to warmth and therefore only come to the surface when you are actually in the bed.)

After dumping our bags we headed into the town to grab some food and some of the fresh fruit cocktails that Brent had talked up so much. Brent had described Montanita as a sleepy surf-town with a few shops and some night-vendors who set up on the streets leading to the beach. What we found was nothing like that!

There were people everywhere, hundreds of restaurants and shops and vendors everywhere trying to push their wares onto tourists (we weren´t even safe from being hassled on the beach!) There were now two full streets lined with the cocktail vendors, each playing their own music loudly to try and lure customers in. It felt pretty sleazy and trashy - a lot like like Phuket or Kho Phangang rather than somewhere in Ecuador! And I did attract a few creepy admirers, one of which wanted to come back to our room and tried to follow us there after we rebuffed that plan. Was pretty funny trying to lose this guy in the throng of people in cocktail lane, and obviously we saw him again over the next few days which was a bit awks!

Nonetheless, we made it our mission to try a cocktail from as many of those vendors as possible! And one even got repeat patronage from me because she made the most amazing pina coladas. I think what made those cocktails extra delish is that they contain condensed milk! Obviously great for my bikini bod...

We checked some other places for accom to no avail - all were full up until after NY. That night, covered in deet and enclosed in my sleeping bag liner watching all manner of insect fly into our room, I was so itchy and close to tears, and the following day we would have no room at all! The next day, when our hostess advised that she had a friend who had a spare room down the road and it turned out to be more insect resistant, I was elated!

We were then free to spend days hanging on the beach and eating ceviche from the carts that patrolled, eating the burgers, burritos, empanadas and rustapan (a dough pocket filled with fresh ingredients like mozarella, tomato and basil) from street vendors, drinking lots of cocktails, and reading in the hammocks outside our room. Most of the people we met were Spanish speaking so conversation was a bit limited and involved lots of sign language but we got by, sitting around bon fires on the beach at night or in one of the nearby bars.

When we ran out of cash we had to wait over an hour for one of the two ATMs in the town, which was a bit of a pain, but we were entertained by the throng of people around. One strange thing I noticed is that a few budget travellers earn a few extra dollars by selling baked goods or shots in the streets.

The NYE celebrations were absolutely ridiculous. Reminiscent of what we had seen in Cusco for Christmas eve but a thousand times worse. There is an Ecuadorian tradition of burning giant effergies full of fireworks and fire crackers. The effergies take all manner of form from Minnie Mouse to politicians and vary in size - the biggest one we saw was about 5 meters high and took 10 men to carry, although they must be quite light as they seem to be made of paper-mache.

At midnight on NYE, a procession of effergies was walked down to the beach to where a number of bonfires were lit. In turn, the effergies would be placed on the bonfires and as they burned, the fireworks and crackers would go off although people (including children) were not standing all that far away. With every crack people got more hyped and began to run and jump over the burning effergies. It was absolutely crazy and pretty scary. Things were exploding everywhere and although boozy, we hadn´t drunk enough to be risking life, loin and clothes jumping over those flames!

We spent the rest of NYE drinking on the beach, chatting to randoms and watching nudey-runs and fireworks being skimmed off the water as they were shot out to sea. A memorable one if nothing else!

NYD was awesome. If it was to set the pace for the new year, I would say it was perfect! We spent the day on the beach again, walking down to the far end with a few drinks, swimming and eating sushi at a beachfront restaurant there. Absolute heaven!