Sea, sun and sandcastles

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Finished another gruelling week at work so we took off on the Friday afternoon for the beach. Went to Playas this time as we couldn't face the nine hour trek to Montañita although this one ended up taking seven hours anyway. Arrived late so checked into a hostal which is best described as "muy basico". Went out for food before going back to the hostal which was absolutely boiling inside. Didn't really matter as I managed to fall asleep fully clothed within a few minutes.

Woke up to a hot if slightly overcast day and headed off to the beach where we set up camp after having haggled for a parasol and chairs. I went straight into the sea thereby washing off all the carefully applied sun cream (I did not want a repeat of Montañita) but luckily I managed to avoid getting burnt except for a tiny bit on my back. We got extortionatly priced ice creams (a whole $1.50 for a magnum!) before settling down to build the most stupendous sandcastle ever as Bel had never built a sandcastle befoe in her life. Deprived childhood obviously! Had help from a couple of curious Ecuadorian children who probably wanted to know why there were crazy English people building sandcastles. I even made a British and a GAP 2007 flag to stick on the towers. Playas is a lot less touristy than Montañita so we got stared at a lot and poor Bel got followed back from the sea from some guy who I swear was drunk. Still, good time had by all and we stayed for sunset before having to drag Bel out of the sea before going to find grub.

Walked onto the beach after food to star gaze before heading back to sleep.

Woke up early on Sunday to make the most of our beach time, got changed into bikinis (with the exception of Matt of course) and went off for an early morning swim at 8.30am. Amazingly enough, my sandcastle was still intact and standing complete with flags! That was until some fat woman decided to use it as a seat and her brat decided to sit in the moat and bury himself with the walls.

Had a swim for a couple of hours before getting showered and changed and onto a bus heading for Guayquil.

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Photos

Sandcastle again
with Bel in the background to show the size!

Comments

[Anna]

Biggest best sandcastle ever!!
Yep! You were right! That is one super-duper sandcastle. Great moat. And flags. Not the absolute best we've ever done though... I do recall a family effort involving carving battlements with a knife and a futile attempt to actually fill the moat..... do you remember that one?! Sounds like you had a great time. Speak soon.

[jeannie mum]

Loved the 'magnum drawbridge'
Hi Kat After re looking at your wonderful castle I noticed the fine addition of a sturdy drawbridge in true ice cream style. Excellent! Are you sure you should be doing a history degree in September or should engineering be a better choice?