Puerto Lopez to San Jacinto

Sunday, March 1st, 2015 San Jacinto
On Thursday morning, we had breakfast and checked out of the Hosteria Mandala shortly before 11 am. We intended to take the 11:45 am bus to Portoviejo, where we would find a bus for San Jacinto. The Mandala owner called a moto taxi (a tuktuk, as it is known in southeast Asia) and for $1 he got us to the bus terminal on the outskirts of Puerto Lopez. It had rained hard during the night so all the dirt roads were now muddy.
At the bus station, we discovered that there was a bus leaving at 11:15 for Portoviejo so we hopped on. It seemed there was no 11:45 bus and the next one would leave after 1pm. It pays to get to the bus station a little early just in case.
This bus was the worst one we had seen in Ecuador. The windows were covered in mud, there was no AC, most of the seats were worn out or broken and the whole bus was generally dirty. However, it cost $2.50 each for the 2 1/2 hour ride to Portoviejo. On  the way we chatted with the only other gringos on the bus, a young couple from Nelson, BC, who had been travelling for several months up the coast from Chile. That helped pass the time, since we really couldn't see much out the windows. Like most buses here, this one had a terrible movie on the screen, in Spanish of course. Liam Neeson was in Alaska trying not to get eaten by wolves. We were rooting for the wolves.
The Portoviejo terminal was chaotic and pretty shabby. After a quick bathroom break, we tried to find a bus to San Jacinto. At first we got on the wrong bus, going to Canoa, but realized our mistake, got our money back, and someone helped us find the right bus to San Jacinto and San Clemente. Our new bus was cleaner and had AC.
For the first 10 minutes, a busker did a comedy and card trick routine in the aisle. We couldn't understand a word he said but he seemed to amuse everyone else on the bus so when he passed the hat we gave him a quarter. Then he hopped off on the outskirts of Portoviejo to catch another bus on the way in and do it all over again, no doubt. There are dozens of vendors selling drinks, sandwiches, fruit, plantain chips, cheap jewellry and everything else, who do this all day on all the buses we've been on in Ecuador. It's actually a pretty efficient way to get a snack or a drink without stopping the bus.
In about an hour, we reached San Jacinto. Our new hosts had told us where to get off the bus but we missed that stop. There are usually few signs and the towns all look dusty or muddy and pretty shabby, so it's hard to tell one from another except by timing how long we think it might take to get there. Anyway, the helper stopped the bus at the next corner and we got our bags, not knowing really where we were or how big San Jacinto might be.
We saw a little diner so Anita went in and asked how to get a taxi along the beach to the "casa ultima" before the "boca" (the last house before the river mouth). The owner came outside, yelled at some guy just hanging out on the corner and explained where we wanted to go. The guy motioned to us to get in his beat-up old car. I asked, "Cuanto cuesta?" (how much?). He just shrugged and motioned us to get in. So we did. He drove us right where we wanted to go. It was probably worth $1 or maybe $2 but we gave him $3 because he proved to be trustworthy and saved us a long, hot walk in the mud. The internet here is slow and sporadic so we'll try again tomorrow.