Yesterday morning Joe and I took a trip to Portoviejo. We were on a mission: purchasing two more ceiling fans, a light fixture for our bathroom and a few other odds and ends for the house. We decided that each day we want to try our hardest to walk on the beach so instead of getting a moto-taxi to drive us into town we walk to the end of our street and start our slow trek to town. It takes us approximately 15-20 minutes, we come off the beach at the end of main street and either wait for the bus by the statue of the Virgin or walk a few more blocks out to the main road. This morning it was beautiful so we continued walking out to the main road. Within 5 minutes a bus pulled up heading to Portoviejo $1 for a one hour ride.. We sat back and enjoyed the scenery, the bus stops whenever there is a passenger hailing them and has several actual bus stops (parada) the first in Charapotó, which has a very lively farmers market on Saturday and Sundays.

The next stop is in Rocafuerte which is about the half-way point and then their is a stop at the Monumento de Maiz where we get off if we are going into centro.

For a $2.50 taxi ride we were dropped off right in front of Multi Plaza.


The small mall has first floor parking with escalators going to the shopping level. There is a KFC, Fybeca pharmacy, ToDoHogar, Kywi, Supermaxi, LosAndes Optica and Pordubanco.

We first went into Fybeca for a few items, then we had to look through ToDoHogar, which is going to be one of my favorite places, they had wonderful comforters, great looking sheets, towels in a rainbow of colors, some wonderful kitchen items including several cast iron griddles, small fry pans and something that looked like a crepe pan. They every had a handful of canning jars, more for decoration than for canning. Joe found several neat looking computers, flat screen TV’s and even some exercise equipment .
Next we went into Kywi with my list. Kywi is similar to a Home Depot in the US. We found a nice looking light fixture for the masterbath, two more ceiling fans and some bug lights for the porch. We wandered the entire store and got a good feel for what they sell. With two ceiling fans to cart onto the bus we decided that we would only take a quick peek in Super Maxi before getting a taxi back to Monumento al Maíz and our return bus to San Clemente. Our taxi driver spotted the Turistico Manabi Bus and pulled right in front of it to be sure we were able to catch that bus. It was a great bus ride back to San Clemente, we decided to stop for lunch at El Eden and our new friends Keith and Becky were enjoying their almurzo. Keith was on his way to drop Becky off at the dentist (who happens to be right in their building) and he came back to pick us up to drive us back to our place.
Patricia came by the house and we took a look, it was amazing, all the rooms were cleaned and it looks like we can move in today.
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