Saturday at the Torremar then off to Big Ralph's

It rained most of the morning in Salinas. But don't let that fool you when at a beach. The people just show up anyway and the rain stops and the day is great by noon. It's the weekend and thousands showed up.

I found the building manager and asked him if there were any units for sale in the Torremar. He showed me two. One on the sixth floor above us on the side apartments needed about 15k in renovation according to him. Another larger one on the whole front of the building was in need of very little work but was only on Piso 2. It had an awesome front view but it would have been much better on the sixth. At 130 k and 150 k nobody is going to even venture a nibble. Far too much when you compare others available on this street that have pools or hot tubs.

Our Torremar building. We were around the side and not right on the front facing the street.

 

I walked down the beach and came across a music group shooting for a music video. Lots of playing and shooting different angles by the camera guy. It took them more than half an hour to get all the shots I saw and they might have enough for the one song. Nice job.

Here is a video on Youtube of the group pretending they are playing while the camera guy takes cutaways of each of them.

At about seven in the evening we walked over to Big Ralph's Fish and Chips.

We began with the appetizer of deep fried shrimp in the same batter as the fish is fried.

Then we ordered beef oso with mashed potatoes and vegetables, curried beef with deep fried onion rings and rice and beef steak with rosemary sauce, fries and salad.

All of these were great dishes. Ralph is originally from England and does not use the Ecuadorian method of salt as the only spice. He has several recipes and the ones we tried were all great with his homemade sauces.

And finally for dessert was a chocolate brownie with strawberry sauce and ice cream.

2.2 km walking

Walking the Beach & Eating at Ralph's

We did a lot of walking today. Went from one end of the malecon to the other and even tried go further. However the army stopped us at the point where their wharf juts out into the bay. The instructions from the guards were to turn around now and go back up the beach the way we came.

We watched an old fisherman toss his net into the ocean to catch fish. On one throw he got two small fish about 8 inches long, several small crabs and a lot of seaweed.

Later we went back to Big Ralph's for an evening of curried beef and Ossobuco.

My travel companions had the fish and chips. You will not get a better meal. Just saying. Or maybe I do need to say it again. These and other meals on the menu at Big Ralph's will be some of the best tasting foods you eat on this trip.

Deep fried shrimp appetizer in the fish batter. 

I had the beef osso buco on mashed potatoes with braised vegetables on the side. Cooked beets on top with deep fried shaved potatoes on top of that.   

Ralph frying up some fish. 

8.7 km walking