Ready to head back to Quito

Day 23...Wednesday, January 27th
It was a long travel day. We left Puerto Lopez for a one hour cab ride to Manta. There we were dropped off at the bus stop to try and figure 'what next'. It was a little chaotic but we were able to get a bus ride to Bahia de Caraquez. This was a long and dusty ride through not very pretty scenery. Really arid areas and really poor areas. Again, another Fast and Furiest movie on the bus. When we finally pulled in to Bahia around 3, we were very disappointed. They were doing road work on the main road so there was road dust everywhere. They had a few modern hotels along the beach area but the were very "Soviet Union circa 1966" in style. We visited a local museum that had lots of information about the indigenous people of Ecuador but all the information was in Spanish. Poor AL, a curse to not be proficient in Spanish. We walked the malecon, beach side, but the water was filled junk. There were some great waves toward the end of the beach and it was fun watching the surfers. The sunset was also a nice feature. Our hotel is our least favorite and we do not sleep alone.....a gecko shares the room with us. AL and I agree it's time to head back to Quito. We'll catch the earliest bus out tomorrow morning.