a la playa

To get to Montanita you have to connect with a bus in Guayaquil. B, one of the OSU girls, spent a semester in Cuenca and knew a company with a private bus-ette that would shave an hour and a half off the drive down, avoiding a lengthy repeat of my ride in. Word was that they were safer as well, though the rubber we left on the curves, and the balding shoulders of the tires noted at our gas stop, left me unsure of how they gained this reputation.
Turn after luscious green turn we worked our way up from the 8,100 ft of Cuenca, passing Cajas National Reserve Park's waterfalls with bucolic pueblitos scattered throughout, and descended into the cloud cover shrouding former colonial outposts marked by steepled churches, bell and clock towers and surrounded by crude brick and mortar with makeshift corrogated tin roofed structures before arriving at flats and banana plantations that inundated the outskirts of the port town of Guayaquil.
We had a two hour wait for the public bus there before leaving the rolling hills behind and arriving at the small, touristy beach town as the sun made its way to a high mid-horizon perch.
Traveling with five girls is funny. With five female-soon-to-be-physicians is hilarious. There is a lot of planning, discussion of possible plans, meal planning, bathroom planning, safety planning, sunscreen, reservation and budget planning.
These are probably good influences on me.
Plus, I didn't have to do much. And it makes sense: for instance, the bathrooms often don't have toilet paper, which is pretty inconvenient if you're not carrying any.
We had a reservation at a very nice beachfront hotel in a six bed dorm room. I changed quickly and hit the beach. The water was refreshingly warm and the waves were breaking regularly in 4-6 foot swells,  making for perfect body surfing. I was lost for hours.

Afterward there was time for some extra leg.