Our walk alone to Olón

Michelle: Ok so I was trying to do a pun.

Don't roll your eyes at me!

I tried.

Anyways on our second day in Montañita, we decided to head over to Olón to find either a good marketplace or store to purchase some necessities. It was about a 2-mile walk one way and doable even for our standards. We are from Colorado and with high altitude, so here at ocean level, we feel capable of actually breathing! The day started out a bit cloudy but cleared up during our few hours out. Pictures are not in chronological order by time of day, but in the order of location from our starting point in Montañita to our destination of Olón.

The cross overlooking the ocean is about where we think the halfway point is and is situated on the cliff that separates Montañita and Olón. Both towns are quite colorful, but Olón sold Michelle with the decorative mixed tiles in artistic aesthetics. It also seemed a bit more maintained, probably helped by less foot traffic due to COVID. Most people here don't wear masks and don't seem to care if you do either. However, it looks as if it is more respectful to wear it while in an establishment as many are quite tight on space.

We were hoping to find many things there that we ended up missing or were not sold there. It would've been nice to know what we should've stocked up on back in Guayaquil which is a big city with all necessities available. But when we got back into town we noticed Tia was actually a store! When we headed out it was before 8:00am (their open time of 8:30am) and from the outside on the other side of the street, it looked more like a car shop. So we didn't think much of it.

Now we go on average, every other day.

We love snacks and they are cheap by USA standards, but for a couple trying to save money for coming back to our home continent, we were eating over budget. Some items here ended up being the same price as the USA and thus expensive when repurchasing here. Many tools we should've taken from home and paid for a checked bag to fit more with us. We will go more into this in a different post to explain.

The trip was unexpected but enjoyable. The more we observed the more ideas we had, especially if we chose to move to Ecuador permanently. For now, we are just collecting thoughts, ideas, plans, and dreams!