The beach!! I'm now in my coastal travellers of Ecuador which means beaches and more beaches! Salinas was my first beach destination and it was simply lovely. It was quaint and straightforward to manoeuvre. Sightseeing can be a lot of fun and educational but every so often I need a lazy day with a book, and if you add ceviche, cerveza, and a snow cone I'm not going to complain. The snow cones are interesting because it was something new to see. Ecuadorean men push these little carts up and down the beach and mounted on the cart is what looks like a vintage sewing machine and they pull out a block of ice and crank away. The fresh shaved ice is shaped into a ball in a bowl and generously doused with syrups and on the top a drizzle of condensed milk. Now watching a snow cone be made on a vintage machinery as such was interest enough for me, but that condensed milk was amazing!! As it cools to the ice it becomes this thicker sticky taffy and it's utterly delicious, a must try if you get a chance. I did not bring my camera to the beach that day but will try and get a photo of these ice artists.

Have you heard of "La Chocolatera"? If your mouth watered you're not alone because I obviously thought it must be some delicious chocolate treat and I was very interested in tasting it. Turns out its the most salient point of South America in the Pacific, located inside the Naval Base of Salinas. Choco meaning to hit or collide and la tera meaning ground, a large cliff where the north and south moving currents combine. It was pretty neat knowing I was standing on the furthest land position of the South American Pacific. The waves are very aggressive and make a lot of noise with the collision. There are some areas you can stand where the waves into the rocks make loud whistling noise or even what sounds like the exhale of a whale. Because you need to enter the Ecuadorean Naval Base you basically have to arrive in a vehicle and more important yet with someone who speaks Spanish so they are not suspicious of your entry to the base. My taxi driver spoke a little English and felt I was not taking enough pictures of the ocean. It was difficult to explain to him in my limited Spanish that taking pictures of the sea crashing into the rocks it's not really all that great of a picture. For one thing my timing is always off, I'm not a professional photographer and I miss the perfect snapshot, and who really wants to look at photo after photo of the ocean and rocks? For me standing there with the wind and the salty mist on my face, looking out only to blue sea, that was treat enough. Of course I took pictures, but I would rather live in the moment than behind the lens. So in the end I guess the taxi driver and I had to agree to disagree without actually communicating it HAHA.