Ruta del Sol & Montanita

The second weekend I was in Manta, a group of us went on a road trip south on the Ruta del Sol (a highway following the coastline). There were seven of us...our Ecuadorian friends had a car, and we rented the other...it was so nice riding in a car after all that time riding in the bus! We were heading towards Montanita to spend the night, while on the way we stopped at various beaches and small traditional Ecuadorian towns. We stopped at a small town just about a half an hour South of Manta for lunch. The town was tiny, there didn´t appear to be many people, especially tourists there, but we stopped at this really cute hostel-restaurant to eat. The ceviche there was delicious! The hostel was directly on the beach....the beautiful empty beaches were one of the main things that surprised me while on the trip. The whole ride to Montanita we were able to view the never ending beaches with beautiful white sand, and completely empty! It was crazy, if these beaches were anywhere in the States they would have been completely packed, it was quite an awesome experience.
We stopped in another really small town along the way to go for a swim. The water was so amazing, perfect temperature, and perfect sized waves that we were able to body surf on. We then stopped in the National Park Monchalilla. There we went to an amazingly beautiful beach called Frailes. Once again, almost completely empty. After the beach we went into a small town where only native Ecuadorians were living. We took a tour with a guide (he didn´t know any English, so we were only able to understand about half of what he was saying). On the tour we were able to explore some really beautiful remote Ecuadorian land...beautiful hills, forests, and gardens filled with all sorts of tropical fruit trees and other gorgeous terrain.

We finally made it into Montanita around 9pm. We were easily able to find a hostel, located directly in the midst of everything. The small town of Montanita was amazing! I had never been to any town similar to it. If you have heard anything about it, most of it is probably true...it´s a tiny town with a massive white sand beach, famous for surfing. The town itself is located just beyond the sand of the beach, although the main roads of the town are also covered in sand. There were about three blocks to the main area, all of which were blocked off from cars. The blocks were lined with bars, restaurants, little shops, and hostels, and tons of vendors on the street selling anything from clothing and jewlery to suveniers, food, and drinks. The town of course was filled with tourists. It seemed like the kind of place that hippie tourists would move to and get by by selling things on the street.....
The nighlife was crazy...pretty much everybody partying in the town was staying in a hostel in the main area, so there were just tons of people going from bar to bar drinking and eating. We bar hopped quite a bit, then headed down to the beach, where there were tons of people sitting around their fires that they had built. We sat on the beach for a bit, then headed back to a dancing club where we danced until about five in the morning....when we went back to the hostel, there were still a lot of people out partying.
We were only there for one night, because we had to get back to Manta to watch the big soccer game (Ecuador vs. Brasil). But I definately am planning on returning to that town before I head back home.