Saturday outing

Mike had walked a couple times down to the beach, and around "town" to get the lay of the land, while I was still wheelchair bound. Yesterday being in the clear to walk, we headed down early to see the sights, and will share them with you. If you head left out our gate, in about 4 minutes ( longer if you're learning to walk again after a month ) you reach our beach, and Malecon (boardwalk).

These (above) were taken on a week day evening, but yesterday being Saturday...

These little tents were set up, and I saw a man with a big stack of plastic chairs go around putting one or two chairs in or in front of each tent. In a blog I read once that these were for rent, and usually came with lunch delivered from one of the restaurants, but I'm not sure if that is the case here. We got down there about 10am, and watched as people would get off the bus to set up little shops on the sidewalk.

This vendor had a big block of ice, that he shaved or chipped to make slushies, with his flavored syrup. We continued to walk and stop to watch for about an hour before we decided to eat.

We had been looking forward to trying ceviche, and local Ecuadorean seafood dishes for months! And were NOT disappointed! Being a Saturday it was a little higher than the weekly lunch special, al muerzo, but worth every penny! ($4.50 instead of $2.50)

We ordered ceviche, and a chicken bistec dish, (which I understood bistec to be "steak" so was interested to see what it would be) it ended up being chicken and potato in a slightly curry flavored broth. It came with a generous helping of rice and plantain fries (think seasoned potato wedges). The ceviche came with plantain chips, which I'd read you crumble on top, the ceviche was GLORIOUS! The plantain chips I can take or leave. The whole meal started with two cheese empanadas, probably from plantain and corn batter, and are not pictured because they were scarfed down too fast! Mikes beer was $1.50 and I had a fresh watermelon juice for $1. We added rice to the ceviche towards the end so we wouldn't  waste any of the wonderfully tasty broth, it was an explosion of flavor! Cilantro, fresh tomato, lime, onion....yummmm! Even at 7 am it makes my mouth water!

The plantain wedges, and rounds. 

Another of the ceviche, because it was that good! On the walk back we took pictures of the sandwich boards outside the other restaurants, so we could translate the specials and plan our next outing. We are finding they sometimes make up words, or our Google translator has never been to Ecuador, one special translated to "cardboard tray"...hmmm no thanks. About halfway down the Malecon we grabbed a " tuk tuk " back to the house, it was $1.

What an excellent day! So glad I'm able to get out and about, makes such a difference. This was more what I had envisioned, but don't get me wrong, lazy days in the hammock were good too! Stay tuned, the Ecuador adventure continues!