Ecuador
Experience
My wife is Ecuadorian, and this was my first trip down there with her and her family. We stayed for 1.5 months, and virtually saw the entire country, living with locals. The country is divided into 3 very different regions. The coast, the sierra, and the oriente (Coast, mountains, and amazon). Each category will differ somewhat depending on the region you are in, but I will do my best to give a clear picture.
Cost of Living: 9
Travelling to Ecuador for the first time from Toronto, was comical when it came to costs. A quick rundown on prices (All USD): $0.60 bottled beers, $1.50 for a plate of rice w/ beans and a meat of your choice, cooked how you want it (typically from "hole in the wall" type places), if you go to the chain restaurants, expect $3-$4 for a full meal. 5-star equivalent restaurant we ate at, dinner for 4, chilean wine, steak w/ prawns type meals, bill came out to $65. $0.25 public transit, $8 bus ride across the country (9 hours), $4-$6 max taxi ride to get anywhere within the big cities. A condo we looked at in Salinas, amazing spacious 2 br, floor to ceiling glass sliding doors, on the coast overlooking beautiful beaches, $130,000. This condo anywhere in Toronto, or any city equivalent in costs, $500-600k easily. I hesitate to give this category a 10, because Ecuador is the first third-world/developing country I've visited.
Recreation: 10
Coast: The most undeveloped pristine coastline I've ever heard of or seen. Going out on a limb I'll say 95% of the coast has no human footprint. Every 10-20 kms driving along the coast, you will find small fishing villages, where you can spend an afternoon soaking it up on the beach, and the waves are decent to surf. Habitable places we stayed for longer periods, would include Salinas, Montanita, and Esmeraldas. All exotic beach locations, Montanita being party central (Babylonia as my inlaws called it). Sea-doo's and 4x4's are all readily available for rent. Guayaquil, the most populous city in Ecuador, is considered coastal. This city can be avoided, nothing much at all to do (This was our "home-base" for the majority of the trip).
Sierra: Quito and Cuenca, the 2nd and 3rd largest cities in Ecuador, are located in the Andean mountains. Both are at high altitudes, so the majority of physical recreation activities consists of hiking or biking. A town called Banos not too far from Quito, has all the extreme sports covered, including white water rafting, bungie jumping, hand-glidding, you name it. Babylonia of the sierra when the sun sets, as well.
Amazon: You can do amazon tours for a few nights, and stay in the rainforests, watch out for the penis fish.
How Safe: 5
Changed this heading, to avoid confusion. Everyone you speak with, over-emphasizes how unsafe it can be in Ecuador, including locals. From my experience, I didn't run into one hairy situation, and I ventured way off the beaten path, where I'm sure no gringos have been in years, if not ever. The people there looked at me more out of curiosity, rather then with criminal intent. The reason I'm giving this category a 5, is because I'm also 6'4, 260 lbs, and I'm assuming part reason why I wasn't bothered was because of this. At the same time I did see in the news, people who were killed in the streets only a few blocks over. Same goes for most travel, be smart and respectful, you should have no problems. Guayaquil was by far the "shadiest" city out of them all. Popular areas and touristy places are full of military and police, and from what I understand, the new president has cracked down hard to clean up any corruption in these organizations. You feel extra safe around them.
Poker Playing: B&M: 6 Online: 6
Quito, Guayaquil and Cuenca, the 3 largest cities, each have one private poker club. I was only able to visit the two in Quito and Guayaquil, but had a great experience at both. Poker is still in its infancy over there, so most all of the players there had only been playing 0-3 years. Combined with a widespread lack of understanding poker math, made for very soft games. We played 1/2 and on weekends 5/5. Crushing 1/2 and 5/5 there over the 6-7 sessions I played, combined with cost of living, has me seriously considering returning. Gave this a 6 because of game selection, and locations.
The internet is slow to average at best. I didn't play online at all, but I talked to a bunch of people who did. I don't know the legalities for online poker there, but I'm going to assume it's legal, and if not, then it's the last thing on the authorities priority list.
How Easy to Get There and Stay There: 8
Daily flights from Miami $200 ish, and all other south american countries (didn't investigate for Europe). Return from Toronto was $800. Tourist visa was 90 days, and from what I understand can be renewed by leaving to peru/columbia for the day and returning, and getting another stamp. Same as many other places I've read about.
Oh, and BABES. Not as fine as Argentinian, or Puerto Ricans, but I still couldn't help myself from imagining them while making faithful love with my woman.
maybe 2-5% of the population smokes cancer, and not once did I run into any weed, or anyone smoking weed. You can find pure if you're looking for it.