On the way to Máncora!!!

So the last week has been a blast. Got to Montañita on Friday night all grumpy and tired, but managed to randomly bump into the Swedish boys again and some of their new friends, won some money off boys at poker and then went out to see this live band playing sweet nineties songs at a bar that has sand floors and a campfire in the middle of the dance floor. Soooo fun!

The next two days were pretty lazy, with great weather, and just laying on the beach, swimming, beach volleyball, and good music all the time. My favourite part is how you can just lay on a deck chair under an umbrella (rented for only 3 dollars a day), have people selling ceviche (seafood soup that I'm trying to train myself to like because it's such a specialty and EXTREMELY fresh, seeing as how they add the oysters and snails to it right in front of your eyes), empanadas (these fried pastries that can have cheese, ham, chicken, vegetables, or my personal favourite, carne, which is a vague label for any sort of meat), ice cream and various other treats. Plus the fact that when they rent you the umbrella, that means the cabaña boys will just keep going to get you drinks and you don't even have to get out of your chair. Veeeeeery nice. Didn't get into any surfing, partly cause the waves weren't all that great and partly because I was too lazy. Wanted to be fresh for Máncora, you know? hahaha But I really am looking forward to getting some lessons, maybe starting this weekend. First I need to get a new bathing suit though, as I got a big rip in the ass of my old ones, which was a) embarrassing and b) annoying, seeing as how I now have to replace them and bathing suit shopping is gross at the best of times, let alone in a foreign country when you're already at the beach and have no other options but to buy the one suit that fits. Grrr. Oh well, hopefully the fact that Máncora is a surfing mecca will provide at least something that will at least be functional, even if I have to pay a crapload for roxy.

And then Monday morning I woke up all gross from salt and sand everywhere (it seems like you can never get rid of it. May have something to do with the fact that no one in the entire town ever wears shoes anywhere. Literally. Only to find that both the water and electricity had been shut off to the whole town without anyone telling any of the tourists. I had the feeling that either this happens often enough that the locals are used to it, or they were anticipating such an event, whereas all of the tourists were obviously walking around all day with dirty clothes, unkempt hair and grumpy expressions. Especially since it was bad beach weather on top of everything else, all cold and cloudy, so we sat inside on the patios all day playing cards (shithead and poker, both excellent wastes of time). And then Tuesday, said goodbye to people and took the bus up north an hour to Puerto Lopez, where I arranged to take a tour of Isla de la Plata the next day.

Had a nice bbq with some people at my hostel, where I made myself overcome some psychological barriers to eat marlin (which i'm pretty sure was still raw except for the seared millimeter on the outside) but it actually wasn't too bad. or at least I didn't gag.

Was to the tour agency first thing in the morning, and we went down to the beach to get on the boat. We got down to the beach, and besides being a jumping off point for these tours, Puerto Lopez is a big fishing town. So at that time in the morning, it's chaos. Boats coming in, people measuring catches, cutting up fish, selling fruit and snacks and remote controls (ya bizarre, i know, but he was there and there was a little crowd all gathered around him). And for every person actually doing something, there were about 5 or 6 men just standing around supervising everything, so that you could hardly move without running into someone or getting honked at by a truck trying to snake its way down the beach. There were a ton of tuna, eels, giant marlins and I even spotted a big hammerhead shark being carted away. Counting me there were 9 people in the tour, and these 2 swiss couples were absolutely ridiculous. Like as soon as they saw the boat we were taking, which was admittedly not a luxury yacht, but more than adequate for a 3 hour round trip purchased for $30 including transportation, guide, snacks, lunch and snorkelling equipment, they all freaked out on the guide, being like "at these prices I was expecting something much bigger, this is absolutely unacceptable and I am very disappointed". And then continuing to mutter under their breaths (rather loudly) about how crappy they thought this whole day was going to be, and they should ask for their money back, etc etc etc. And then when they saw the rest of us pulling off our socks and shoes to roll off our pants to wade to the boat, they were flabbergasted. Actually had their mouths hanging agape. As if they never had to remove their shoes for anyone in their lives, unless it was a pedicurist. And then when presented with the bag to store all the shoes in until we got off at the island, they balked even more, to the point where they actually refused to get onboard until the guide went around and found a separate bag for the four of them to put all their shoes into first before deigning to put them beside the rest of ours in the bag, as if they had spotted someone with a nasty foot fungus or something and were afraid of catching it. It was about at this point that I realized how much fun they were going to be, and made friends with everyone else.

So about an hour and a half on the boat before we got to the island, and before getting off, the captain and skipper started throwing lettuce overboard, which confused me at first, but then all of a sudden the entire boat was surrounded by sea turtles and angel fish. So close you could touch them, although that was discouraged both by the stickler guide and my fear of their giant snapping mouths. And then on the island (which was a lot drier and more desolate than I guess I was expecting) we walked for a few hours along these trails where there were blue footed boobies in various stages of courting and nesting. Saw some doing the little courting dances and others with eggs or various sized chicks, which were so fluffy and cute. And then at the far end was a HUGE colony of magnificent frigate birds (that's their actual name, not just me scraping for adjectives by the way). And then back to the boat for a late lunch and snorkelling off the boat, which was AMAZING. I don't even know what all the things were so I can't name them for you (sorry) but unbelievable colours of fish, that you could see on the reef like 15 or 20 m away, but the reef even was surprisingly close to the surface in some places so you could see into all the little nooks and crevices all up close. Saw some manta rays and angel fish, clown fish, eels, and even a jellyfish from far away. Plus there were tons of schools of tiny fish that would surround you, which was kind of fun except for the fact that they kept bumping up against me or nibbling at me, which would freak me out and make me thrash around like shark bait and get salty water up my nose putting me into a sneezing fit. Probably not all that graceful or attractive, but it was good fun.

And then back at the hostel when I was packing up my stuff, happened to run into more people that I knew and stayed to talk with them for a little bit before catching the bus back to Montañita, where I stayed for the night. Then I caught the 5am direct bus from there to Guayaquil, where I arrived at 8am to find that the next direct bus over the border to Máncora doesn't leave until 11:30 tonight. Which is good because now I have time to have a bit of a look around the city and hopefully buy a new camera in a mall somewhere, otherwise I'd have to wait until Lima likely. So hung around in the bus station dozing for a bit after buying my ticket for tonight, and then took the bus downtown to find something to do. After hopping on the bus (with all of my huge pack, which is gross considering how disgustingly sticky hot it is here) the man who was the announcer of what bus it was (ie the guy who hangs around on the curb yelling out the destination, trying to find more people to get on) started off screaming in a booming voice, and at first I was a little confused by what he was talking about, but it ended up being one of the most elaborate and convincing sales pitches I've heard in a while. Now I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but maybe i should backtrack to a bit of a description of the south american bus system

So when you get on a bus, you can board pretty much from anywhere, whether a specified stop or not, as long as you are waving your hand, flicking it like getting a bug off. Boarding is sometimes on a bit of a rolling stop, so you better make sure you have all your stuff ready to hand to the man assisting the driver (see description above) or just look extremely helpless so that they will fully stop and help you load it. And you don't have to have a ticket, in fact, most people don't, since the assistant guy usually comes around after every stop or two and collects either tickets or money from anyone who got on recently, figuring out the fare based on where you tell him you're going to get off. Sometimes other passengers are holding bags of fruit, pushing sugar cane lengths under the seat, or holding chickens in their laps. And at any given time, someone jumping on the bus may actually not be looking to go anywhere, or are a passenger but still use the opportunity to sell whatever they are peddling that day, whether it be bags of coconut milk, boxes of incense, fresh fruit, chocolates, empanadas or sandwiches, baked goods, peanuts, plantain chips, etc. So anyway, back to today's story, said assistant guy goes into this spiel and I wasn't sure where it was going, because the first several minutes were about how Ecuadorians are eating too unhealthily, the state of nutrition in schools and nursing homes, and the expanding waistline of the nation. And then he started hauling out laminated newspaper and scientific journal articles, citing his sources for statistics and nutritional information. VERY thorough research being presented here, for another few minutes. And then the pitch began. How he was extremely concerned for the future of his nation, and in fact every person on that bus. He wanted to improve each of our chances for survival by offering us the opportunity to purchase some of these special herbs and seeds from a very important native ecuadorian plant which was thought to prevent problems due to high cholesterol, reduce the risk of cancer, etc etc. And actually by the end of it, I was one of the few people on the rather crowded bus who wasn't convinced to buy something from his bag of tricks, although I was extremely impressed by the thoroughness of the effort, haha.

So then got off the bus downtown and lugged around my stuff all morning checking out the Bahia street market, which is this huge collection of stalls, like a mixture of flea market and tiny little shops all bunched up together, lots selling the exact same products, tons of clothes, shoes, aforementioned remote controls, food, etc. Very interesting place, and probably you could find almost anything you needed. Except for a camera that is. So now I've just had a bit of a stroll along the Malecón waterfront and am sitting in an underground mall trying to see if there's anywhwere here I could find a digital camera, because if not I'm off to find another bigger mall. Possibly one with a movie theatre where I can kill some time before heading back to the bus station later tonight. so going to be one long day, but hopefully by tomorrow morning I'll be ready to check into my next hostel for a few weeks and start on those surf lessons. Oh yeah, first I have to find that bathing suit......

Thanks for the comments guys (Aunt Laurie especially). And Allison, that sounds like a perfect thing to add to your list- we should do some trip planning comparisons, cause I have had some amazing accounts from other travellers I've met on the road if you want some ideas of places to go, hahaha. Off to brave the heat again- I know I shouldn't complain when it's like snowing and stuff there, but seriously. Love you all!

xo Sarah