Blogs from Canoa, West, Ecuador, South America - page 8

For Carnival, Darren, Ian, Pierre, Emily and I decided to go to CANOA! Its an amazing beach in the Manabi province. We took a bus from Quito to San Vicente (8 hours) and from there got a ride in the back of a truck to Canoa (30 minutes), which is a little north of San Vicente. Canoa is, BY FAR, my favorite beach in Ecuador, mostly because everyone is so chilled out but also because the beach is gorgeous and big, there is a lot of beautiful sand and lets not forget the sweet ass rocky caves at the very end of the beach. Usually Canoa is very "tranquilo", BUT because it was Carnival everyone was at the beach, so Canoa was pretty packed. There were NO hostals, so we were forced to tent, which ... read more

dieses wochenende war ich samstag/sonntag/montag in canoa. das heisst am wochenende karribisches partyfeeling, unter der woche eine verlassene geisterstadt. im klartext: den ganzen tag faulenzen, baden und sich nen sonnenbrand holen...uebrigens fuer die dies mitbekommen haben: an diesem sonntag lief der superbowl im fernsehen. die chicago bears against the indiana colts (die colts haben uebrigens gewonnen). jedenfalls war die einzige bar mit einem fernseher die eines immigrierten kanadiers der tickets verkaufte wobei essen und all you can drink inklusive war. das resultat war das alle amis aus ihren loechern in canoa hervorgekrochen kamen und sich in dieser bar versammelt haben um ihre mannschaft anzufeuern...die atmosphaere war ziemlich lustig...:)... read more

Clases de Español are going great. Juan Carlos, our teacher, is great and very patient with us. We have been surfing every day between classes and the surf has been great. Malia´s longest rides ever! They are baby waves, but still very fun. Yesturday we (us, two canadians, and a dane) went on a canoe tour through Isla de Corezon. It´s a mangrove island containing the largest population of frigate birds on earth. They are the ones that puff up the red-balloon-like air sac on their chest to attract the ladies. What an awesome experience! The guide we hired, loaded us all up into his dug out canoe (made from one cedar log) and we headed across the bay/estuary toward the mangroves. Two people had to bail water the whole time to keep us from sinking. ... read more

After three days in Canoa and remembering our very long journey from Quito, we decided that a night bus from Bahia de Caracas would be nicer than the day bus we took to St. Vincente. Plus we heard that this town was an "ecocity" and we wanted to see what it was all about. We took a bus from Canoa to St. Vincente in the morning. We met a nice gentleman who helped us to catch the water taxi across the bay to Bahia. We spent the day walking around the peninsula and watching the amazing waves hitting the shore. We ate some great Italian food and ice cream. Kerensa ate cerviche and it was great also. The pelicans clumsily diving into the water kept us entertained for hours. Janel and Kerensa collected more sea shells. ... read more

The coast down here is pretty poor, everywhere you go there are whole areas being burnt in a spanish colonial technique, called slash and burn. Farmers clear the land by burning large pieces of land, which clears and gives some short term fertility fopr about a year. But after that the land is deemed pretty infertile, so farmers move onto the next piece of land...its all pretty heart breaking to see, as you know its not good for anyone in the long term. The absolutly fantastic people at Rio Muchacho see www.riomuchacho.com are trying to operate by example, an alternative to all this. Operating by example is not enough, so they are really trying to effect cultural change, by training up local people on the farm. But one of the best things they are doing is ... read more