Entries about hostel

Today I finally managed to visit Toledo, an extremely beautiful, historical town that I've wanted to go to for many years!

It was a day trip organised by my hostel and we left quite late in the morning so I didn't have as much time as I'd have liked - I only really had time for some photos from a viewing point at the top of the public library...

... a wander through picturesque, narrow, cobbled streets, a set lunch and then a really good look round the cathedral, including a trip up the belfry tower to see what I think is the largest bell in Spain.

The cathedral included a museum that was mainly filled with religious art but also contained four silver sculptures from 1695 of a goddess sitting on a globe showing one of the four known continents on the world at the time. I gave a mental cheer when I looked at the Americas one and saw the names of both Guayaquil and Quito carved into the correct places in the space where the country Ecuador would later be created.

At lunch I tried something I'd never tried until then - octopus. It came in chunks as part of the free appetiser. The texture and taste was much nicer than I expected. I still don't think I'd be able to eat an octopus if it arrived on my plate whole with all its tentacles out, but in the future if a dish has octopus chunks in it I won't hold back from ordering it.

After I left the cathedral I had just enough time to buy a very special souvenir for myself - a small but high quality knife with a blade made from Toledo steel and the handle handmade from antler. I did the whole interaction with the guy in the shop in Spanish so I didn't understand every word he said, but before I bought it I made sure to check that it's a type of knife allowed into the UK. He showed me the types he had that aren't allowed and said that my one was fine. So fingers crossed it will get through OK on Monday! I've already put it into my big case to make sure I don't leave it in my hand luggage by mistake and have it confiscated at baggage x-ray.

Once I was back in Madrid I met two really nice girls from Philadelphia who had moved into my dorm while I was out. They were very chatty and when they said they were going to Lisbon soon I told them that I think it's one of the best cities I've ever been to, which made them get even more excited about it. Amongst other things, I recommended that they go to the famous Portuguese custard tart shop/café in the area of Belém.

For dinner the three of us joined in an all-you-can-eat tapas event organised by the hostel jointly with some other hostels nearby. There ended up being quite a large group. We were taken on a walk to the tapas bar, which was almost unnoticeable on the street (it wasn't a touristy place), led upstairs and then organised into groups standing up at small circular tables. Plates of tapas were brought round to us, along with very large glasses of a drink very much like sangria. The tapas was very tasty, though not very much at all in the way of vegetables.

After the tapas finished there was an option to carry on to a bar crawl, but the Philadelphians and I decided to give it a miss and head to bed, as it was already very late and we had a lot planned for the next day. They were going to go on a Toledo day trip (I'd recommended it) and there were lots of things I wanted to see and do in Madrid.

The highlights of today (not in chronological order);

- the same feeling of excitement that I had yesterday

- the Museo del Prado - lots of really famous art by El Greco, Goya, Velázquez (I was particularly keen to see his work because I remember doing an essay in my third year at Swansea about some of his paintings within this museum), de Zúrbaran, Fra Angelico and Titian, amongst others. I only had to queue for twenty minutes and because it was between 6-8pm I got in for free.

- A lovely walk through the massive Parque del Buen Retiro. These gardens were really pleasant and I came across a big lake as well as the beautiful Crystal Palace... slightly bizarrely the latter had lots of small wicker rocking chairs set up inside, each with a thick book attached to the chair by a string. I thought that was a really good idea. You couldn't stay inside the building for too long because the sun created an atmosphere like the inside of a greenhouse, but it was still a very interesting and rather unusual environment to be in!

- Another lovely walk, this time round the small Royal Botanic Gardens.

- Wandering the streets, taking in the beautiful plazas and architecture.

- Churros and a mixture of hot chocolate and black coffee with sugar for breakfast at the hostel.

- the interior of the Parroquia San Jerónimo El Real, which is behind the Museo del Prado. Unfortunately I could only have a quick look from inside the the entrance because a service was going on, but I loved what I saw.

These aren't highlights in particular, but I'd still like to mention them. On the way back from the Museo del Prado in the evening, I came across a peaceful pro-Gaza march along a street round the corner from my hostel.

Once I got back to the hostel I had some of the paella that is provided cheaply there every evening - not bad at all.

Edit from January 2019: Las Musas Hostel still seems to be going strong. Unforunately, Asador Arrizmendi restaurant seems to have closed permanently.

My connection in Bogotá was smooth and quick, a nice contrast to the palaver I'd gone through at the airport in Guayaquil! Even though I knew I'd be within the airport the whole time, when I saw the lights of Bogotá as we landed I still felt the familiar twinge of excitement of arriving in a new city and country. It was night time by now.

Before I boarded the plane to Madrid I managed to use up $1.80 of the $4 I still had left in my Ecuadorian bank account on a bottle of Coca-Cola Light.

The nine-an-a-half-hour flight from Bogotá went smoothly; it was a night flight so I spent most of my time trying to sleep. I was in the middle row so didn't get to look out of the window at all.

My journey from the airport to the hostel in Madrid (Las Musas Hostel) took quite a long time but I got there in the end. By the time I dumped my bags in my dorm room it was between 4.30 and 5 pm. I was absolutely knackered. The hostel looked really good but one thing I would suggest to them is that they make their lift a bit bigger and sort out its doors - they swung inwards and then snapped shut very quickly, which made manoeuvring my case, rucksack, laptop bag, coat, two wide-brimmed hats (they wouldn't fit in the case) and paper map through the doors turn into something more akin to a door-wrestling match.

It was still quite hot and sunny and I revelled in being in another new city and country again. I had never been outside of the airport before, so had never officially stepped onto Spanish soil until now. The impressions that struck me on this first evening were;

- the strangeness, in a good way, of it still being quite light outside at 9 pm. In Guayaquil it gets dark between roughly 6.15 and 6.30 pm all year round...
- the lack of humidity in comparison to Guayaquil
- being able to walk down the road without having to watch out for unexpected holes in the pavement
- European faces instead of indigenous and mestizo
- people pronouncing the 'c' in 'gracias' like 'th' instead of 's'
- the change in architecture

Dinner was at Asador Arrizmendi, a restaurant only round the corner from Las Musas. It was delicious. I had as an appetizer of two small chorizo sausages and a bread roll with butter; as a main course prawn and leek pie; and as a dessert a set Basque custard very like créme caramel, with whipped cream and sugared, flaked almonds on top.

The morning was taken up with having breakfast, having one or two drinks and a game of cards on the beach, checking out of our various hostels and having lunch (I had shrimp ceviche). Then we went back to Guayaquil via Santa Elena. We didn't get back until after 7pm.

One full day left in Guayaquil now, before I leave Ecuador.

The day after I arrived back in Guayaquil from Quito I was off again, this time on a weekend trip to the coast with several of my colleague friends. The plan for the weekend was to go whale-watching, as Puerto Lopez is well known for this, visit Isla de la Plata to see some of the same wildlife and terrain you can see in the Galápagos Islands and go snorkelling, eat seafood and generally relax on the beach.

I can take the credit for the idea of coming here, because I had planned for a while to go whale-watching here on my last weekend in Ecuador (as July and August are the best times of the year to go whale-watching) and made the suggestion to the others that they might like to come as well. They were all really up for it. As luck would have it, today was a public holiday in Guayaquil (the Founding of Guayaquil), so no classes, and they managed to get a day of holiday for the school the next day as well, so they had the whole weekend free to join me on the coastal trip. I'd already finished working, of course, so I didn't have to worry about getting days off work.

We met up at Guayaquil bus terminal at 8.30am, where we had some breakfast at the food court. We couldn't get one of the direct buses to Puerto Lopez because they were all full, so we had to get two buses. The first one went to Santa Elena. The road there was the same one we took to get to Punta Blanca for the Queen's birthday party last year at the house of the British Consul; that had been my first trip outside of Guayaquil, so now it felt like a full circle, also going along this road on my last trip outside of Guayaquil. The Santa Elena Peninsula is very dry (I think it may have its own microclimate), almost desert-like with uninhabited open expanses of dry earth, covered with parched-looking bushes, on both sides. In the sunshine it was quite picturesque in its own way.

From Santa Elena we got on another bus to take us up the coast to Puerto Lopez. This road runs right next to the sea in many places. It runs through little fishing villages with small blue painted boats pulled up onto the sand. As we approached Puerto Lopez we went through some forest. We were now in the province of Manabí.

On arrival we split up briefly to check into different hostels. Some of us had booked places and others hadn't, but everyone found somewhere quickly. Puerto Lopez is a small town so we were all close to each other. Three of us were in the same place, two others were next door and the others were only round the corner.

As soon as everyone had settled in, we all went out for lunch together at one of the many seafood restaurants lining the road running parallel to the beach. Like them all, the place was cheap, but the food was genuinely fantastic - I had one of the best meals of my entire life there; a whole lobster cooked in a coconut sauce containing chopped vegetables. It came with a side of rice and patacones (slices of fried savoury plantain). They'd cut the lobster in two so that the meat was easy to dig out of each half. It was unbelievably tasty, and for only $20... The lobster was the most expensive thing (I had decided to splash out a bit); the other dishes were nearly all below $10. 'A' had a fish dish with peanut sauce which she said was absolutely delicious. I made a mental note to have that the next day.

We'd started lunch quite late, so by the time we finished and then moved on to the beach, the sun had gone in a bit. I read on the sand for a bit and then it was nearly sunset, so I didn't get in the sea. I settled for a paddle instead.

We moved straight from lying on the sand to sitting on it at a beach bar, one of many lining one section of the beach. We had a few drinks; I had a Pina Colada and a cocktail I hadn't tried before called Coco Loco. Condensed milk, coconut milk, rum, grenadine and crushed ice, with coconut shavings on top.

For dinner we went back to the same restaurant, but I was still so full from lunch I didn't have any food; I only had a Caipirinha cocktail.