Blogs from Montañita, West, Ecuador, South America - page 5

It’s easy to see how a couple of weeks here in Montañita and the surrounding environs could turn into a couple of years without being cognizant of the time. The laidback atmosphere penetrates everything. The actual town of Montañita is a traffic jam of surfer hostels and hippies braiding hair and selling hemp bracelets. The plethora of ex-pats, I believe like most similar communities, encourages the movement of more ex-pats to the area. Based on a recommendation from my friend, Chuck (originally from San Diego who lives in a nearby community), I stayed about two blocks away from the main town of Montañita and a world away in el Barrio de Trigillo. When you turn down my two-car wide, dirt road, your pace slows down, butterflies flitter in front of you and bird song fills the ... read more

We came to this little coastal surf town to surf, learn some Spanish, and volunteer at a near-by hospital. We stayed in this amazing little apartment. It felt like we were in a remote beach house and had the ocean all to ourselves. The crashing waves blocked the sound of everything else. We spent most of our time hanging out on our balcony with our Swiss friend Patrick who we had met in Matapalo. One morning as we were sitting and enjoying our morning coffee on the balcony I saw a pod of 50 dolphins swim by. As we watched them pass they turned around and went by again.. and again.. and 20 more times, swimming right in front of our place. Dana and Patrick ran out with their snorkels and surfboards and the dolphins swam ... read more

It´s Sunday...so there was no construction going on, so I was finally able to sleep in! I got up around 11 then headed into town for breakfast...the usual. After breakfast I headed back to the cabañas for a nap before watching the surf competition continue around 2pm. Sandy, Elyse, and I headed to the beach around 2 to hang out and watch the competition...however it actually wasn´t starting until 3, so Elyse and I headed to La Punta to go out onto the point. Big mistake to go without shoes since it is all coral and not too pleasant on the feet...but we managed to stick to the sides where the rocks were and did it with no problem. It was really cool out there...there were channels under the corral for the waves to travel through, ... read more

So I slept in today till about 11 then headed into town for breakfast. While waiting for my food to arrive, I saw Marissa passing on her way to the internet cafe. She sat down to join me. Apparently last night Raul got tanked again and made it back to the room around 5 am again...this time he apparently walked in circles for an hour in the room until he finally crawled into bed...half this time Sandra was in her bed scared of what he might do but didn´t say anything. Marissa told me Sandra is thinking about moving rooms because she gets annoyed when she´s woken up every night by drunk Raul...I told Marissa she could always crawl into bed with me...and that´s when she told me Sandra thinks I´m cute...woo hoo...half the battle has ... read more

We are still here in Montañita and unfortunately the weather has not changed. We have not seen sunshine the whole week or so we have been here and there has been more or less a constant light drizzle of rain that is enough to get you damp and keep you that way. Braeden has enjoyed surfing every day despite the cool temperature but I have yet to get into a bathing suit. If you´re not a surfer and can´t lay out on the beach, there really isn´t that much to do around here. For this reason, I´m pretty sure we will be moving on to Peru on Monday. Mancora is supposed to be beautiful with sunny weather all year round (more like the beach weather I´ve been hoping for). I believe Matt will be coming along ... read more