Blogs from Canoa, West, Ecuador, South America - page 6

I don´t have a whole lot to say about good old Canoa. It´s just a village on the beach, not much going on. I just wanted one last chance to do some surfing before heading inland so Jaakko and I stayed 5 days and hit the water as much as possible. I guess the most memorable part was the full day journey it took to get there when we estimated to be about 3 hours. We took a bus (they told us direct to Canoa) which stopped in some random town. They tole us to get off and that we´d have to change busses sometime within the next 2 hours. Turns out our next bus broke down before it even got to the bus station for us to get on it. So we had to ... read more

Well, we left La Hesperia a week ago and took a dusty, rough 8-hour bus ride to a small surfing town called Canoa. The best way to describe a bus ride in Ecuador is chaos. From arriving in a dusty, hot and humid bus terminal in the bigger cities to the constant bumps, swerves and random music and movies that we experience along the journey. Going through Santo Domingo reminds me of a wild-west city where chaos reigns and it represents the transition into the coastal region of Ecuador. Our bus that went from Santo Domingo to Pedernales looked as though it might not make it as it rattled going over potholes and bumps in the road. Although the memories of the chaos and nervousness of riding down a mountainside on a muddy trail in pouring ... read more

Finally!... read more

Hey! So I´ve now been in Canoa for almost three weeks. Spanish classes are going well. I have two instructors, a father and son. The son runs the place with his family. They have a 5 yr old daughter that´s pretty cute and who will speak with me (she´s a lot better than I am=). The father (who´s about 70) keeps talking about me getting married (no not to him)... it´s quite funny, but I´ve already switched my ring to the other hand and I´m about to ask for photos of kids that I can say are mine. My days are pretty nice. I spend 4 hours in class, I go running almost every other day along the beach, and I spend a lot of time sitting in either the hammock on my balcony, or in ... read more

Vide Verde, our spanish school, gives the option to study in either the rainforest or on an organic farm near the coastal resort town Canoa. It was our first overnight bus trip in Ecuador and it wasn't exactly, how should I say, comfortable. If you are over 5'10", you pretty much can't ride a bus in Ecuador for more than 2 hours. If your name is Kevin Patti, don´t get on a bus in Ecuador. Night buses have added security compared to the typical daytime bus ride in Ecuador. You have an assigned seat, you are searched before you get on the bus, and your luggage has a tag put on it and you are given a recipt so risk of our things being stolen is minimal. The seats recline really far which is nice except ... read more