Expat Community > Ecuador

DUNMOVN
Joined 2011
Posts: 1991

Esmeraldas Log

11 years ago

A friend and I just spent one week in Esmeraldas, Atacames and Tonsupa and here is my take for those considering this coastal area as a place to live.
1. Esmeraldas is not on the coast, it is about 20 miles inland and you have to take buses or taxi to the beach town, which is Atacames.
2. Esmeraldas gets about 5 months of rain a year and not just gentle spring rains, but real gully washers. Other than the main streets, which are sort of paved, the side streets and shoulders of the main streets are dirt and the whole place is a mud hole. But after the rains and mud dries up, you can imagine the dust clouds from driving in dry muddy streets.
3. The city makes no attempt to clean the streets and a half-hearted attempt to collect garbage. In the six days we were in the city, I saw garbage being collected once and it piles up everywhere. In Cuenca for example the street sweepers work 7 days a week and garbage is collected 3 times a week.
4. Atacames, the beach town reminds me of Atlantic City NJ, of 40 years ago. The beach is filthy as is the sand and I saw no effort to clean it. But that is the same everywhere in coastal Ecuador. Pristine is not a word to use in describing Ecuador’s beaches.
5. Tonsupa has been touted as a garden spot, but other than a couple of high rises on the beach, there is not much else. Two blocks away, are dirt streets and residents living in shacks, which in many cases had no doors or windows. Ditto for Atacames and Esmeraldas.
6. The Pacific coast in Ecuador is very similar to the Pacific coast in the US, the water never gets very warm—it is not like the Atlantic Ocean at all which the water will get to the upper 70s. Having lived in California many years ago, I can say that the sunsets on the Pacific are not nearly as spectacular as on the Gulf of Mexico in Florida.

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