Day trip to San Vicente and Canoa

Thursday, 10/14/10. Today was excursion day. Several of us took the panga, a small people boat. As I may have mentioned before, Bahia is a peninsula with the Pacific Ocean on one side and the Chote River on the other. Across the river is the little town of San Vicente. The only way to cross the river at this time is by boat. Ecuador has just completed building a bridge to span these two cities but it does not open until the end of October. After getting off the boat, we grabbed at taxi and headed to Canoa, another little beach town up the coast. We had been told that this was a must visit. We were also told to have lunch at the Bamboo Hotel, which we did. We had fried shrimp and french fries which were very good. We sat outside on the beach and the weather was sunny and warm.

After lunch we went shopping. We each bought a couple of locally made necklaces but really didn’t see much else so we walked to the bus stop and rode back to San Vicente, caught the panga back to Bahia and headed over to our favorite restaurant, Puerta Amistad, to meet the owner’s wife.

We had agreed earlier to meet her there to do some volunteer work. The President of Ecuador is arriving on the 29th to dedicate the new bridge so there is a drive on to beautify Bahia. In this particular case, we were planting flowers at a day care center. Fortunately, foliage grows fast and furious here so the garden should be lush and beautiful by the time the President arrives.

I will be gone by then as I have decided to leave Bahia on the 26th when my month is up and head up to the Capital of Quito, then on to Columbia. That’s as far as my plans go at this time, since I am under no time constraints until I hear from the Peace Corps.