Practicalities
Entrance to the reserve, which is run by the Fundación Pro-Bosque, is a thirty-minute bus ride from Guayaquil (every 10min), on any service to Playas, Santa Elena, La Libertad or Salinas from the main bus terminal. Look for the big sign for the Bosque Protector Cerro Blanco on the right-hand (north) side of the highway, where the driver will drop you off. From here it’s a fifteen-minute walk up a clearly marked track to the information centre. On weekends you can just turn up, but on weekdays you should book ahead on t 04/2874946 or t 2874947. Should you want to stay, there’s a pleasant two-room bamboo lodge ($16–20) and a free camping area with decent facilities; the site also has a small café-restaurant which opens on weekends. Many of the trail guides ($7–12 per group; some speak English) are biology students from Guayaquil University. There are usually several about, but it’s worth phoning ahead to book one, particularly if you want to take the Sendero Buena Vista Largo walk.
Salinas
The highway ends 5km west of La Libertad and 170km from Guayaquil at SALINAS, Ecuador’s swankiest beach resort. Arriving at its graceful seafront avenue, the Malecón, feels like stepping into another world: gone are the ramshackle streets characteristic of Ecuador’s coastal towns, replaced by a gleaming boulevard lined with glitzy, high-rise condominiums sweeping around a large, beautiful bay. Closer inspection reveals the streets behind the Malecón are as dusty and potholed as anywhere else, but this doesn’t seem to bother anyone – it’s the beach that counts here, with clean, golden sand and warm, calm waters safe for swimming. The best time to enjoy it is December, early January or March, during weekdays. Around Carnaval and on summer weekends it gets unbearably packed, while from April to November it can be overcast and dreary.
Salinas’ main draw is its long, curving, golden beach, and warm(ish) ocean waters, safe for swimming in. Get here soon after breakfast and you’ll have the sand and the sea virtually to yourself – but by afternoon in the high season you’ll be sharing them with droves of vacationing Ecuadorians.
If you need a change of scene, try the Museo Salinas Siglo XXI, on the Malecón and Guayas y Quil. It’s divided into two sections: one giving an excellent overview of pre-Columbian cultures on the peninsula, including some beautifully crafted Guayala and Manteño-Huancavilca ceramics; the other with displays on nautical history, including items recovered from the galleon La Capitana, which sank off the coast near Punta Chanduy in 1654, taking with it more than two thousand silver bars and two hundred chests of coins. The small but captivating Museo de Ballenas (daily 10am–5pm, or when Oystercatcher restaurant is open; ring bell for attention or call t04/2778329; wwww.femm.org; donations welcome), attached to Oystercatcher restaurant on General Enríquez Gallo (a few blocks north of the Barceló Colón Miramar hotel), features a 12-metre skeleton of a humpback whale, skulls and bones of other cetaceans and preserved dolphins, all of which were washed ashore.
Santa Elena
Twelve kilometres beyond the turn-off to Baños de San Vicente, the E-40 hits the little town of SANTA ELENA, sited on the eponymous peninsula, and recently made the capital of its own little province, also called Santa Elena.
Unremarkable in almost every way, the town’s sole attraction is the fascinating archeological museum of Los Amantes de Sumpa on the western outskirts of town, signposted from the main road a couple of blocks south of the road to Salinas. The museum is built on the site of one of the oldest burial grounds in South America, established from 6000 BC by the ancient Las Vegas culture, one of the first groups on the continent to start shifting from a totally nomadic lifestyle towards semi-permanent settlements. About forty years ago, some two hundred human skeletons were excavated here, including the remains of the lovers of Sumpa – the skeletons of a man and woman, about 25 years old when they died, buried facing each other, the woman with her arm raised over her head, the open-mouthed man with an arm on her waist. Their tomb, on display at the museum, makes an unforgettable sight, and the accompanying displays on the Las Vegas and other coastal cultures are excellent, ranging from funerary offerings such as shells, knives and colourful pebbles to a reconstruction of a typical montuvio house. Santa Elena is served by frequent buses from Guayaquil, and a taxi from the centre out to the museum should cost no more than $1.50. Alternatively, take a Salinas-bound bus and ask the driver to drop you at the turn-off to the museum, a short walk away.