© 2011 Elys. All rights reserved. Travel Buddies

Day 147: To the South, Capitán!

31 Dec View Exif Data Filed under 16. Ecuador. Tagged , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink. Post a comment. Leave a Trackback (URL).

New York City – Atlanta – Miami, USA – Guayaquil, Ecuador

Soooooo…..
On my last entry, I said about heading about back out in mid December. That changed due to some ticketing complications. The first available award flight out of the USA to South America turned out to be on Dec 31. Along with that, the route plan that I mentioned also differs slightly now:

  • New York City, USA – Guayaguil, Ecuador
  • Guayaquil, Ecuador – Lima, Peru
  • Lima, Peru – Santiago, Chile
  • Santiago, Chile – Sydney, Australia
  • Sydney, Australia – Jakarta, Indonesia
  • Jakarta, Indonesia – Tokyo, Japan
  • Tokyo, Japan – Seoul, South Korea
  • Seoul, South Korea – Taipei, Taiwan
  • Taipei, Taiwan – Hong Kong, China
  • Hong Kong, China overlanding to Mumbai, India
  • Mumbai, India – Amman, Jordan
  • Amman, Jordan – Istanbul, Turkey
  • Istanbul, Turkey – Budapest, Hungary
  • Budapest, Hungary – London, UK
  • London, UK – Bermuda, Carribean
  • Bermuda, Carribean – New York City, USA
Not ideal, but for $790, I can deal with that :]
Anyhow, I have a travel partner this time around for the entire trip and his name is Richard. Here’s a quick summary of how we ended up travelling together: was browsing Traveller’s Point forum on its travel buddy section, saw a bunch of solo RTW backpackers looking for buddies, hit up a few of them backpackers, Richard being one, and from all of them, he has the most similar/flexible timeline, route,  budget etc. and he happens to be in NYC as well; met up with the bloke, seemed an okay person and not a psycho killer, and that’s that.
After 16 hours of  painstaking commute, Richard and I finally made it into Guayaquil in Ecuador at 11pm or Dec 31st. Closing in on Guayaquil with the airplane flying low towards it, we could see countless fireworks shooting up throughout the entire city. It was a beautiful sight.
Prior to my trip, I had not done much research and had no clue what Guayaquil was like. During our transit time at Miami’s airport, Richard pointed me to the Guayaquil Wiki travel guide page and this was what he wanted me to take note of:
“Guayaquil is well-known as Ecuador’s most dangerous and violent city.”
“Guayaquil is especially dangerous at night, so avoid walking on streets at night.”
“Attacks have been reported where someone will distract the target so that the attacker can put a choke hold on the victim from behind and make the victim pass out in order to easily rob the person.”
Mmmm, so basically, we’re arriving in Ecuador’s most dangerous and violent city close to midnight, and we will be chocked out and robbed blind… Ahhh, the beauty of travelling…
Luckily,  we made it to our hostel by 11:45pm safe and sound. As soon as we put our stuffs down, the hostel front desk girl told us to join the other hostel guests on the street cos it’s a local new year’s eve custom that everybody will be out of the street burning dolls and throwing firecrackers into the flame. The scene was definitely interesting. Had I not known that it’s a NYE celebration, I would have thought it’s a strike running amok: bonfires all along the street, the firecrackers sounding like gunshots,people dodging the firecrackers’ flame, cars’ alarm system all ringing aloud due to the firecracker’s explosions. Managed to snap some pictures and shoot some videos, none are good, since I was ill-prepared. But here goes:

Happy New Year Everybody!
and Happy Birthday Nathan!

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