After an 14 hour long bumpy bus trip we arrived at Guayaquil bus terminal, which was an experience in itself. The bus terminal was first class top of the range and made Honduras airport look shabby. Like normal one of us sat with the bags and the other went bus hunting armed with either the Lonely Planet or a piece of scrap paper with the name of our destination on. We eventually managed to identify the bus company we required from the 102 which were available and with our best broken Spanish booked two seats. We have some time to spare until our bus but neither of us minded as there was a food hall, which had EVERYTHING. Now you wont understand this when you read it but after a few weeks of snacks and fried food you crave a "real" meal. We gave our food decision a lot of thought and even split up for a bit so we both could made our informed decision and then indulged.

Due to the size of the bus terminal we decided to give ourselves some time which extremely sensible as there were three floors! We found our bus and took a seat like normal. Becki decided to nip to the toilet so I was left with all the bags, this wasn't out of the ordinary and when it happens we usually keep an extra eye open. While Becki was blissfully peeing, I noticed a young guy acting strangely, like he was constantly on edge watching for the police and watching me. As I occasionally like to over react about security issues, I decided I would watch this guy more closely and his actions become stranger by the minute. He started eying up up bags, keeping an extra eye on Becki's wallet and the other eye on the police officers. He starting circling me and our stuff, making polite conversation with street venders when the police looked his way, When Becki returned I relayed my suspensions and we hurried onto the bus. We found some seats and settled down to find the guy followed us onto the bus and sat behind us with one of his friend following sitting the other side. We had been told about thief's cutting open your bag while it is on the floor and steeling things out of your bag without you noticing. After a few minutes we were surrounded by four young boys, speaking loudly in Spanish trying to keep our attention. Unluckily for them neither of us could understand what they were staying and we were both tired form our last journey. We both felt extremely uncomfortable with the situation so we decided to move to the front of the bus and sit with a Spanish family. Were we positioned ourselves so we could use the TV to watch the boys and keep our belongs on our laps. No sooner had we moved and they had all changed their clothes and accessories and shouted stuff in Spanish and got off the bus. We were lucky this time but we both know we have too keep our wits about us.

The rest of the bus journey was uneventful having to unexpectedly change in this tiny town where no one spoke English and we headed to Puerto Lopez. We arrived in this tiny town, which was either really muddy or extremely dusty depending on the rain fall that day. We caught a little tuk tuk to our chosen hostel Del Sol. As we arrived Becki's eye lit up as there was a free pool table and dart board. We settled into our new home, did some hand washing and went exploring for our version of the Galapagos. We went to a few shops, spoke to a few travelers and we decided that what we would see wasn't worth the money so we decided just to chill out. We explored the dusty town and found an intense volleyball championship going on. All the local men of every age, size and ability had turned up in their best white pumps and their most American top they could find to play. We watched a few games which the local men enjoyed and then headed back to our hostel.

We spent the night chilling out talking to other travelers, hearing about their close con and scan encounters and what their plans were. We did meet this extremely interesting French man who left us both speechless. He had been traveling for the past year and a half and hasn't set foot on a plane or paid for a bus and lives off $8 a day. He was a keen sailor who had been working on boats, hitch hitching, living with locals, sleeping in his hammock with only his small knife as security. He also told us that about two months ago he had a pair of goggles, a spear fishing rod and caught his own food, cooked it and exchanged what he had left over. His stories were motivational and kept us both captivated for hours. There were a few holes in his tails but they were so full of adventure neither of us minded.

The next day we spent listening to poems and quotes from the french guy, swimming in the sea, reading and planning our next move. Over the past two days we had challenged three french guys to a pool match of girls against boys and England V's France. Like most people do they had underestimated Beckis skill and more to the point her competitiveness and England beat the French 6 nil! I can't take much of the credit of the wins, I think my job more to distract them while Becki did her thing!

The next day we jumped on our local bus, headed back to Guayaquil and onto Tumbes in Peru, which was another 8 hours trip!