Our Andean Adventure: Montanita

After working our way through Ecuador’s mountains, we had to hit the beach! Tim loves incorporating surfing into our family trips, so he booked us a few days in Montañita, a surf town along Ecuador’s coast. Once again, he found us a hotel that did not disappoint: Kundalini Beach Hotel (hostalkundalini.com.ec). We were thankful that Kundalini was a five-minute walk from the main town, because Montañita can get a little cray-cray, especially at night. Case in point: In about five town blocks, there must have been four discotecas (our favorite was Alcatraz – looked to be a few stories high with lots of wire fencing and ‘danger’ signs).

I mean, would YOU want to go dancing here?

We embraced our downtime at the beach. The water was warm, so Tim got to surf and the kids and I played in the waves near shore. We did laundry and restocked on snacks. We played cards. We drank all the delicious Ecuadorian fruit juice.

We also:

1. Visited the local pharmacy to buy more sunscreen. We handed over a $20 to pay. The pharmacist didn’t have enough change, so she gave us 600mg of ibuprofen. Not sure when we’re going to need that big pill, but we’re carting it around nonetheless.

2. Scheduled our COVID tests for entry into the Galapagos via WhatsApp. On the appointed day at the appointed time, a guy in scrubs came to the reception area of our hotel. We paid him cash and spoke through his translator app. He gave us all the saliva test and promised results by 3pm the next day. We weren’t sure what was going to come back, but I’m happy to report by 5:30pm the following day, we had four negative test results.

3. Ate lunch one day off the main street, and were accompanied by a stray cat. The table next to us cut up some fish and put it on a napkin for the cat to eat. We watched the cat suck up all the fish – and the napkin.

Cat just hanging out under our table.

Cat guzzling up its food -- and soon, the napkin.

4. Ate at a ceviche cart (well, Tim did) – one of dozens that littered the Montañita beach. Once again, how do these people make money?! There must have been 25 ceviche carts in a 1200-meter stretch.

Looking over the menu.

Most delicious!

5. Saw cows enter the restaurant attached to our hotel. Yep, hungry cows walked into the restaurant to munch on the decorative plants. Restaurant staff had to keep shooing them away.

A herd of cows munching on the grass outside the hotel restaurant.

A cow is now in the restaurant. Just another night in Montanita.

Three days was the perfect amount of time in Montañita. I don’t think I could’ve taken the town any more than that – it was kind of like Las Vegas-lite. We got used to it, but it just wasn’t our jam. We learned from our hotel owner that there’s a concerted effort to clean up Montañita (remove trash, plant trees – that sort of thing) and make it more attractive to tourists and beach-goers. Hopefully the clean-up effort is successful, because the area is so beautiful.