We have been walking in Olón, Ecuador, beach walking We haven’t walked the full distance yet. To the north, I am guessing that it is about round trip hike of about 16 km from our casa. To the south, about a 4 km round trip hike. For the past two days, we have walked 10 km per day. The other days, just 8 km hikes. We may extend our average hikes to 12 kilometres later on during our stay, but if we don’t we are certainly getting enough exercise as it is.
The walk happens while we wear bathing suits in spite of the fact of there being long stretches where we see no one, especially at low tide. Since the beach is a highway of sorts for motorcycles and an occasional pickup truck, it’s a risk I don’t want to take. On the weekends it is much busier. Rather than complain about the status quo, I simply am grateful that I can be walking the beach rather than hiding in my house while it is -30+ Celsius outdoors back home.
The town is just as interesting as the beach for us. You can read about the town here, so I won’t spend any time with that other than to say that there are many beautiful paintings done on the sides of buildings. I’ve included one of the most recent paintings here. It almost appears as if there are twice as many wall paintings than when we left here in April, 2019.
One of our social activities is what is referred to as Wine Wednesdays. It is the only time we deliberately meet up with other gringos. There are other meetup places and events, some happening daily, but we aren’t in Olón to hang out with expats. We are here for the beach, for our escape from winter, for a quiet peacefulness. And for me, the frequent night strolls down the beach when the tide is right, wearing nothing at all make up for the daytime beach strolls which we also typically do during low tides.