Half term - road trip to the coast

We decided to hit the coast for the October half term. We ended up turning back and sleeping in Quito for the first night because I had followed what I thought was a road on the map (it turns out it was the border between two provinces!). I used to love navigating but absolutely hate it here because there are no signs and the roads are awful! When we eventually set off, we stayed at a beach called 'playa escondida' in Esmeraldas for the first night. The place was an eco-lodge. Our room was great because it was kind of in the open. We were sleeping with a shelter above us, but no walls and only a mosquito net. It was fun for one night but I wouldn't like to stay there much longer with all the insects every night. The beach was nice and there was no one around so we had it all to ourselves. The following day we had another disaster with the roads - this time it was not my fault! We followed the coast road south west instead of heading inland to the busy main road. We had travelled for about 2 hours only to come to a complete halt because the road had stopped and there was a river!! We could see the road that we wanted continuing on the other side of the river but could not get across the water! We had to turn around and retrace our tracks, to make it worse, the petrol light was on red! All fun and games. We got back to the main road and headed south to Canoa. The weather wasn't great so we were not that impressed. The coast in Guernsey is so much better! We also got stopped by the police for going through a red light that we did not see! Was quite scary as they put you in jail here for things like that. Luckily we just flashed our British embassy cards and went on our way. All in all, we spent a lot of time driving and were not that impressed with the beaches so we are not going to return to the coast in a hurry!