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

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South America » Ecuador » West » Canoa August 9th 2008

So for the past two weeks we have been traveling on the coast. We woke up on Sunday morning and after checking out of hostel we went to the bus station to buy tickets and we were so lucky cause the bus was leaving in 20 minutes- (we have had amazing timing like this our whole trip, when we don’t know the schedules of anything and we end up making buses just at the perfect time- good travel karma I think  Anyway, it was about 8 hours through some pretty scary terrain. For a lot of the time we were traveling on windy dirt roads high up in the mountains and the bus driver thought it was a good idea to pass anyone in front of us. But we made it to the coast safely ... read more
the pier for the boat taxi
San Vincente
views of the coast during our taxi ride

South America » Ecuador » West » Canoa August 9th 2008

Sunday morning, the girls and I woke up early to see the rest of our group off as they headed back into the jungle for another 3 weeks. That afternoon, we once again packed up our backpacks and headed to the bus terminal. We managed to get tickets for a 12:15 bus to Bahia, a town on the coast. Though we were told the trip would only take 8 hours, we arrived into the dark and deserted town of Bahia at about 10 pm. We had the name of what we hoped would be a good hostel, but when we arrived there by cab, the place looked closed. The three of us stared at the dark building for a few seconds, trying to figure out where in this dark town to turn next. Thankfully, as we ... read more
the girls
Canoa Beach
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South America » Ecuador » West » Canoa July 23rd 2008

I´m about two weeks behind on this whole blog thing because I just haven´t had chance to get near a computer. Today I have a little free time since litterally ALL my clothes are at the laundry and I can´t leave the hostel wearing only a pair of tights and a llama pattern jumper, so I will use this opportunity to catch up. So based on notes I´ve been making on the back of leaflets during horrendously long bus journeys, here is is installment number one - leaving Canoa Our favourite electro hut burned down the night before we left. There are two alternative explanations going around town, one that ´bad men´did it, the other involving and electrical fire. Kit favours the conspiracy theory, as always, but I personally feel that a combination of home made ... read more
Beach Dog
Breakfast In Surfshack
Driftwood

South America » Ecuador » West » Canoa July 17th 2008

While we were out stuffing our faces with seafood the other night, we came across a big group of American doctors eating in the same restaurant. From eaves dropping on their conversation, we established that they were a Christan medical mission. Kit wanted to go and make friends. I was very much against this, due to my irrational phobia of evangelical chrstians. Yes, this is a little mean. But in my defense, I have never once been hassled by a Buddist, Hindu, Jewish or Muslim person, it´s just the christians that really seem to have it in for me. And they were from America too! That means they must be like those people in that Louis Theroux documentary who think you go to hell for drinking coffee. Despite my resistance we ended up going to see ... read more

South America » Ecuador » West » Canoa July 16th 2008

Our hostel / spanish school is at least 30 minutes walk outside of Canoa. Not 15 minutes, as stated on the website. This is a LIE. To try and get around the problem we have rented rusty old bikes, to which we have afixed torches using part of my bikini top in an attempt at road safety. Mine will not change gear and is stuck in an extremely low one meaning I have to peddle like fred flintstone to get anywhere. The road is pretty quiet, at least 50% pothole and lit iratically in places by streetlights which go on and off completely at random, because everyone here steals their electricity. To make matters more interesting, there are two stray horses and a Beach Pig which freely wander the road, stopping traffic. As I was cycling ... read more
C
D
B

South America » Ecuador » West » Canoa July 15th 2008

I have overcome my reservations about surfers all being posey wankers who talk like they´re retarded (knarley dude? fuck off), and decided to give it a go. At first I hit myself in the face with the board repeatedly, and blamed Kit. This is strangely remeniscent of what happened when he was teaching me to snowboard. Pretty quickly though, in fact on my THIRD wave, I managed to stand up and ride it all the way in. Unfortunately this was just beginners luck and I rapidly became shit again, but I admit it´s kind of fun. Word of advice - never go surfing wearing disposable contact lenses. The salt in the water fucks with the osmolarity or something, and dehydrates them into thick, sticky blobs that glue themselves to your cornea and never come off. We ... read more

South America » Ecuador » West » Canoa July 6th 2008

So we´re in this tiny seaside village called Canoa. We´re going to be here for about 3 weeks, staying at a little Spanish language school right on the beach. The place is run by a local family. This Ecuadorian guy Huan Carlos, his wife, his Dad and various other relatives teach classes at the school and run the hostel. They have three puppies, a kitten and a small child who all run around and climb on you while you´re trying to conjugate verbs. It´s one on one tuition for less than 3 quid an hour. The classes are pretty intense, especially for me because my Spanish is currently non existant. Luckily Carlos and his wife Marielina speak good English, though some of the other teachers don´t understand any. There are only six or seven students at ... read more

South America » Ecuador » West » Canoa July 4th 2008

So American Airlines never answer the phone. They clearly just give out a fake number to angry, bagless people. In the end we stayed an extra night in Guayaquil and went back to the airport, where we just marched in and swiped my bag out of arrivals, where is was rotating forlornley on a conveyer belt allegedy containing luggage from Panama. Whatever. The main tourist attraction in Guayaquil was "Iguana Park", a small square of grass randomly placed in the middle of the city traffic, covered in litterally hundreds of Iguanas, some of which were fucking massive. They amuse themselves by climbing up trees and pissing on people from a great hight, occasionally throwing themselves to the ground and scaring the crap out of everyone. In exchange for Igunana food (tasty leaves) they will tollerate being ... read more

South America » Ecuador » West » Canoa July 4th 2008

Hmmm to start off with the giant fire...late one evening just before bed i was wandering some dark dodgy street in San Lorenzo while Kate slept soundly away from the pouring rain,when a rather impressive explosion ripped through the night sky accompanied by an orange glow a few blocks away....so hastily i headed toward the commotion...(no not very smart i understand) half a market plus a two storey house with an internet cafe completely engulfed in flames.....exploding computer monitors, burning power lines and within minutes the entire village was there watching the spectacular display of electrical fireworks and flames.... 90% of the population of african descent cheering and shouting as the firemen attemped to spray water all over the electrical box and power lines....alas a kitty who got well fried in the process was the only ... read more
trucks
just for DIY Steve
don´t catch the bus on friday

South America » Ecuador » West » Canoa May 3rd 2008

I was just robbed. It was unglamorous, i didn´t even know it was happening. A guy came up to our table and passed out little forms that said he was deaf and he needed money... my bag was hanging on my chair, and when he came back to collect money he was oddly friendly to us when we declined to hand anything over to him... gave us a thumbs up with the one hand that wasn´t occupied stealing my stuff. I don´t really care about the money, but in that bag was my book that I was really into reading and my journal. I had spent some solid time writing a descriptive blog entry about the past while and recorded it in there, so here´s the bare bones, i just got robeed version... After leaving Quito ... read more




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