I spent a week surfing in the Ecuadorian town of Olon and a few days in the port city of Guayaquil. I also spent a few hours checking out the beachside party town of Montanita.
Olon
Olon is a relaxed beach town a few hours north of Guayaquil. The main part of town is basically 4 blocks going east and west and 3 blocks going north and south. What it does have is a long beach with lots of olas (waves in Spanish). It’s not the prettiest town, but its got a nice, relaxed vibe about it. I was there in the beginning of the rainy season and there were low hanging grey clouds the whole week I was there. But, overall I liked the place.
The surfing here was mixed. It’s an incredibly wide beach and, even at high tide, there was a ton of room to surf. Many times I didn’t have anyone within 200 meters of me. The waves were very inconsistent, both during each session and from day to day. I missed way, way more waves than I caught. It was hard for me to get any regular repititions (welcome to surfing!). I was told January through March are the best months. The weather is sunny and the surf is glassy and consistent.
However, the fact that it’s not crowded, that the waves are big, but not huge, and that you need to learn to read and react quickly to changing conditions, still make it a good place to get better at surfing if you put the time into it. The locals really had it dialed in. They could turn into a wave and catch it on a dime, and didn’t need a lot of space to read each wave. Skills I’ve got a long way towards mastering!
My apartment was essentially a large hotel room. It was nice and run by two really cool French guys who had come to Ecuador to start a reforstation project in a nearby cloud forest. They had taken over the hotel a few weeks ago and had an option to buy it from the owner in 3 months. They wanted to learn the business and then use it as a springboard to create an ecotourist resort in the forest.
Guayaquil
Guayaquil is the second largest city in Ecuador and, with a large port and a strong manufacturing base, is the economic heart of the country. Overall it’s a pretty generic large Latin American city. The one major exception is its well designed 3km long promenade along the Guyas River called Malecon 2000. It’s wonderfully designed and creates a tranquil ambience in the hectic city. There’s also a nicely restored hillside section of town called Cerro Santa Ana that has brightly painted homes and cobblestone streets.
I had a nice, modern Airbnb apartment just north of Cerro Santa Ana and the malecon
Montanita
Montanita is the beach party town of Ecuador. It’s just south of Olon. It’s got block after block of bars, restaurants, touristy shops, hotels and hostels. If the movie The Bachelor Party was filmed in Ecuador, it might be filmed here. It’s an ambient beach town without the ambience. Just a lot of buildings packed into a few blocks. But I’m sure it functions very well for its primary purpose.
There is also good surf here, but the town really didn’t have a surf vibe. I didn’t see any surf shops or schools; if they were here, they were greatly overshadowed by everything else in the town. It’s also primary Ecuadorian. Unlike the beach towns of Central America, I really didn’t see any Americans or Europeans floating around.
Surf Log – for future reference here’s my log of my surfing efforts in Olon
Day 1 – had a nice 7.5 foot rental board. First 20 minutes was reading the waves. Then caught 3 waves in 40 minutes. Then the conditions changed; the outside waves got bigger and more walled off and the inside waves got softer. Couldn’t catch anything else.
Day 2 – I only lasted about 30 minutes. The outside had walled off sets with nothing much inside. Had a hard time getting and staying outside. I was literally the only one out in the water in a beach stretching over 1km end to end. I talked to a surf instructor at the place I rented boards. He agreed that the conditions weren’t that good today. He said the best months to surf here are Jan-March. The rest of the year can be inconsistent with wave quality.
Day 3 – Caught one great wave and went over the falls (sometimes spectacularly) on 5-6 waves in about 2 hours. The periods were short and the waves were steep. Day 4 – Waves were smaller and I didn’t catch any in a 2 hour session. They were soft and I kep mis-timing them. Also, there were a couple of long periods with no waves at all. Day 5 – Waves had pretty sloppy shape and the ocean got completely blown out for a period of time. Still caught a handful of wave, but my setups were bad and didn’t get any good rides.