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Published: November 7th 2007
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Canoa
"The Chair" After our amazing time at Sani Lodge, we headed West towards the coast to Canoa. The 12 hour journey involved 3 taxis, 1 bus and 1 boat, but we got there in the end. Canoa is a beautiful sleepy little beach town, with not alot going on. We stayed in the lovely Hotel Bambu, and had a great bar on the beach, and awesome food too. To be honest, not alot was done in Canoa! We enjoyed happy hour cocktails at sunset, and got free dancing lessons in an Irish bar which was deserted apart from us! The theme of swinging away the hours in hammocks continued, so much so that we developed extreme hammocking, with me pushing Kate as hard as I could- Rad! It was great to unwind by the sea after the sensory overload that was the jungle.
On our 3rd night we decided to break out the tent, as we hadn´t actually used it yet. There was a smashing little plot in which to pitch, right beside the beach, so we were excited to get setup for the night. As you can see from the photos, the sunset over the Pacific was amazing. The fun and
games began when we were heading to bed, there was a chap who had been sitting at the bar wandering around. He decided to sit down about 20 feet infront of the door of our tent, barefoot & facing the sea, and proceeded to act strangely to say the least! From the darkness of the tent, i watched him for 90 minutes as he let sand run through his fingers, appeared to wash his face with sand, thrust his crotch to the skies and then the sand, stood up and spun in a circle...as you can imagine i was trying to figure out what the hell he was at. Prayer? Meditation? Human sacrifice? Anyways off he strolled and i dropped off to sleep. We decided that we´d keep the outer door of the tent open for fresh air (and visibility) and the inner door padlocked.
At 2am Kate woke me. She had noticed that there was a chair right at the door of our tent, that was 15 feet away 10 mins ago. It was practically in our tent, 2 legs on the groundsheet! We were a bit freaked by this as there wasn´t a soul around. We wondered,
Canoa
Kate at the bar why the hell would someone leave a chair? Was it a staff member trying to prevent stray dogs sniffing around our tent? A weirdo from the beach? After lying twitching for several hours, trying to figure the whole thing out, we dropped off to sleep again around dawn. When i got out of the tent, i noticed large footprints in the sand leading directly to our door, and over to where Freak Man (the meditator, as we called him) was doing his thing. For the rest of the day i inspected the sand as everyone walked past me, but the same print was never seen again! To this day, the riddle remains unsolved...Answers on a postcard please.
We left Canoa a couple of days later confused, but relaxed by the happy hour cocktails. We went to Mindo, which is in the cloudforest, 2 hours from Quito. The owners of our lodgings in Canoa had a place there too, so we headed there. The "Cabañas Bambusa" is a collection of cabins on a hillside, located beside a river just 5 mins walk from Mindo. It´s an amazing location, surrounded by high mountains with lush forest. Our cabin was really comfy,
Canoa
Mark in "Shamrock Bar"....i know, i know and there was really nice grounds which was home to 4 white bunny rabbits all around.
We headed up to the waterfalls, which are supposed to be spectacular. My amateur Spanish decoded that it was a 10 min walk. 2 hours later (Hmmm, lost in translation!), we were there. Over the canyon in a cable car, and down we went. Anyways, having seen the biggest waterfalls in the world, frankly, these were a bit crap. In I jumped for a swim nonetheless, and very nice it was too. There was even a slide made out of the rock!
After two nights in lovely Mindo we headed back to Quito, to Secret Garden. Since it was third time there they had booked us into the best room, the only one with an en suite! We decided that we couldn't leave Ecuador without going to Mitad del Mundo, (the middle of the world), where the equator runs through. So off we went to stand on the equator, which was about as exciting as it sounds, i.e. not very. Basically we spent 1 1/2 hours getting there and we were bored after 1 1/2 minutes! We had already crossed the equator
numerous times throughout our time in Ecuador so paying $3 each for the privilege of standing on the painted line, seemed excessive! The standard photos were taken and back to Quito on the bus to prepare for our departure to Peru....
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MichaelM.
non-member comment
Rituals
Mark if you thought his ritual was unusual then next time you are in Ballyconnnell make sure you enjoy a night in Ballyhugh and witness the Broom Dance! The chair though is interesting. Still enjoying your travelling commentary and to think that Michael Palin has a new book out aand you dont even charge! Autumn is slowly changing to winter here in the northern Northern Hemisphere.