My only complaints

1. When I ride the bus they blast music that I do not enjoy at full volume, thus forcing me to turn up my iPod in order to have the Wu Tang Clan battle for control of my eardrums and sanity.
2. When riding on said bus, they will pack it with people in the aisle and thus at any given time, there is a butt in my face.
3. People that stand in front of a bathroom and demand a mere 15 cents for entry, which is not so bad, if it were not both flooded and I am forced to do the old "squat and shake".

Other than that, all is well. I enjoyed kicking back at the beach in Canoa for a few days and found it hard to leave. Here are some pictures of where I stayed.



Last night I took a bus from Canoa to Quito and from Quito to Tena which is where I am currently residing. So if I am a bit testy about the bus, it is because I spent about 16 hours on them. Tena, six hours southeast of Quito, is called the "green heart of the Amazon" and is a city built so tourists such as my self can check out the jungle. Tomorrow I will be going on a trek for a few days but I am opting for the one with hot water and electricity. I love camping and all but under certain circumstances, these things are a must.

Hooray for Boobies!

On Monday I took a trip out to Isla de La Plata, also known as ¨poor man´s Galapagos¨. For those that don´t know, a trip to the Galapagos is pretty expensive, the cheapest you can do it including airfare to the island from Quito is about $1200 for a four day trip. From Puerto Lopez, an hour north of Montanita, I took a boat trip to Isla de La Plata. It also has the boobies that you find on the Galapagos, the frigate birds and the semi-endagered Albatross (who can sleep while flying).


The boobies will sit together on their nest and not even move, which is good for pictures but one also needs to be considerate that they are still intimidated by us. Any boobie that was seen sitting by himself was a male sitting around hoping a female would show up. They also take turns getting food when the chicks have hatched, how very modern. I´m not normally much of a bird person but this was something different to check out.


On the way there and back we saw humpback whales which migrate through between July and September. They are such amazing creatures, it is just not something someone could tire of. I mean after seeing all those boobies I was like ok, another pair of boobies, big deal. But watching the whales, especially when they breached, was spectacular.

Yesterday I took a bus ride from Montanita all the way up to Canoa which is due west of Quito on the coast. Canoa is a small little beach village with a couple of surf side bars and hostals in the form of beach shacks. It is very tranquil with travellers that just happened upon it like I did. I will either stay here for a few days or move farther north up the coast to Mompiche, another beach town, before heading to Quito to find an organized jungle tour in eastern Ecuador( a.k.a. ¨the Oriente¨). I love the laid-back beach lifestyle here, the only drawback being that the Internet connection matches the pace of life-super slow!

La Camioneta

The picture above was taken on my tour of the Sacred Valley near Cusco last Thursday. I left my friends in Peru, Nacho and Icia, for Ecuador on Friday. The night before we took advantage of the free drink tickets they are always passing out in the plaza. There is a better picture of us but I thought the look on Nacho´s face in this one was kinda funny.

I don´t know if I mentioned how cold it was in Cusco. It was absolutely freezing and everyone wore hats like these that they sold for cheap to keep warm. So that explains the fashion.

I flew to Quito, Ecuador Friday and was greeted by a friend of my friend Mike Krilich´s named Lee. They were roommates in college at U of W and Mike had told me that he lived in Quito. He was nice enough to find me a hostel and come get me from the airport. Later on a few of us went for drinks but I headed home early (around 1) as I had planned to get up in the morning for Banos. Saturday morning I learned that the volcano in Banos was erupting and the road was closed so I went with plan B which was to fly to Guaquill(only $50)and take a bus to Monanita. Monanita is a surf village described as bohemian with a good party vibe so I figured I would fit right in.


It turned out the bus station was on the north end of the terminal and was directed to this random bus off the highway that would take me there. I found my stop, got my ticket to Santa Elena where I would change buses to Monanita. The bus was pulling away as I got on and the only gringo sat in the back of the bus with her big ass backpack. About two hours later we were in Santa Elena and by now it was about 9pm. When I got off I asked the driver when the next bus to Monanita would be and he said soon. The bus left and I heard someone call Monanita, and I said ¨si¨ and was directed to what was called a camioneta. Ok picture a pickup truck with a camper shell and in the truck bed is a bench that lines three sides, with wood on the tail and the roof. I had no choice but to pay the $2 for the camioneta ride because as it turned out, there were no more buses to Monanita that evening. About six of us climbed in the back, the guy wanted my big ass backpack to go on the roof but I refused, wanting it in plain sight. Ok I figured, I can deal with this for the next hour and a half. The driver, about a 20 year old kid, and his buddy sat up front. The buddy yelled while the driver kept honking the horn. For a while I couldn´t figure out wby because we seemed full to me. Then I realized my version of a full camioneta and their version of a full camioneta were two different things. We made several stops along the way with people getting off and on. At one point I counted sixteen people inside the camioneta, five people standing on the tail and three people on the roof. I shit you not. I just hoped and prayed we would get to Monanita safely, thinking all of the limo rides I have taken for bachelorette parties and cherishing them immensly.

Finally we got to Monanita about two and a half hours later and what had been described a surf party vibe was a complete blowout. Apparantly I had walked into a full moon party. The main drag was completely crowded and I had to ease past a firethrower with my big ass backpack on my journey for a decent accomdation. Soon the description decent was thrown out and I was just looking for anything as everything was sold out. Finally an hour later I found a $5 room whose prospective inhabitants had never showed. (By the way when I say $5 I mean $5 as the U.S. dollar has been the currency of Ecuador for the last six or seven years now. But things obviously are much more cheaper here than in the U.S.)

I grabbed a beer and a hamburger out on the street and hung out with this 20 year old Scottish girl who had seen the look of distress on my face and helped me find a place to call home. I slept past the partying that went on until about 6am, exhausted from my journey. But right now I am thrilled to have left the freezing cold whether where I was wearing a thermal under flannel pajamas, to the humid ocean weather- even if it is overcast.