Once I had successfully acquired the tourist visa to Colombia, there was no reason for me to stay in Quito any longer. So I gathered my bags and left for the bus terminal. My next destination was the coastal town of Esmeraldas to see the Pacific Ocean. There were direct buses to the coast, but it would take at least 6 hours to get there, which meant that it would be very late at night by the time I reached. As a single traveler in a foreign land, I wanted to avoid being outside that late into the night, and hence decided to only go part of the way. Accordingly, I bought a ticket to Santo Domingo de Los Colorados which was only 3 hours away.

It was about 8 pm by the time I reached Santo Domingo. The bus terminal was in a rough looking neighbourhood. There were groups of men standing around smoking and talking loudly, while skimpily clad prostitutes walked around exhibiting their wares. With my backpack and cap, I clearly stood out as an outsider and was the target of all their stares. I dared not fish out my camera to take pictures. Fortunately however, there were many hostels in the area, and I easily found a cheap room for the night.

It was only when walking up to my room that I realised what a shady place this was. It was a loud place filled with cigarette smoke and seemed like an establishment favoured by the prostitutes on the street. I just wanted to get up to my room, lock myself there until the morning and get the hell out of there as soon as I could. I could feel all eyes on me as I entered my room and shut the door. About 10 minutes later, I heard the last thing in the world I wanted to hear - a knock on my door. I opened it a peep to find a man asking me something. His Spanish was much faster than I could understand and told him so. He slowly said “Agua”, meaning water. I fetched him a glass of water which he drank, thanked me and left. It was clear that his curiousity had gotten the best of him and he wanted to check out who this stranger was. Thankfully however, nothing else of note happened and I could check out of there and leave in the morning.

Breakfast was something really delicious I had at a crowded roadside stall run by a pair of brothers. I have no idea what it was, but it tasted divine. Then I got on to a bus to Esmeraldas, and later on to another one going south along the coast to a small town called Muisne (pronounced moo-ee-nay).

Muisne is actually a small island created by a thin arm of the sea. Parts of it reminded me of my own native place, the city of Mangalore on the south-western coast of India; even though the two places couldn’t possibly have been further apart. At Muisne, I rented a sea facing room with a hammock outside (for perhaps half the cost of my hostel bed in Quito), and proceeded to the beach to touch the waters of the Pacific Ocean for the first time in my life.

Hammock outside my room

First look at the Pacific Ocean

Puffed up dead fish on the beach