The Weekened

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What a weekend! First off, as I was told, Montañita is definitely livelier on the weekends. Starting Friday night, a bunch of street vendors set up small shops along one of the main roads to sell one thing: alcohol. Basically, it’s a row of 10 or so stands selling all kinds of drinks throughout the weekend. And this is in addition to the existing bars, restaurants, and stores which all sell alcohol throughout the week. Drinking is such a common thing here that I think people are less inclined to “drink” and more inclined to “sip”. Meaning that since you can pretty much get whatever you want anytime at a pretty cheap price, most people simply have a drink or two every now and then, instead of partying like crazy and getting super drunk every other weekend (or every weekend, as may be the case with some people) in college. It’s definitely more chill since people are relaxing and having a good time, rather than being obnoxious, loud, belligerent, overly emotional, retarded, obscene and all else that comes with the drunk-off-your-ass territory. That’s not to say people here don’t party…they most certainly do. Everyone comes out around 10 or 11 to the bars and clubs, which are pretty packed by 12. Often the music doesn’t stop till 4 am or later since there are enough people there. Not that I know, because I’ve never been the type to go clubbing for 5 hours, let alone 1, but this is what I’m told. If you want more details, you can ask Allen, who decided to go to a rave after we left the club at 1:30 am. He came back around 4:30 with no money left in his wallet, so hopefully he had fun.

Our day lives were just as busy as the nightlife this weekend. On Saturday, we rented bikes and biked around 10 km along the highway and beach until we reached the town of Entrada. The panadería (bakery) there is quite good. From Entrada we took a bus up to Ayampe, which is in a much more mountainous/jungle-y area. There we just hung out on the beach and biked around for a bit before returning on bus to Montañita. Overall it was pretty fun, except that my bike seat was ridiculously hard and uncomfortable so my butt hurt a lot. To add to the pain, we went horseback riding on Sunday, and I being the lucky one, got a wooden saddle, while Allen and Crystal (another student here from California) got leather ones. My ass is still in pain. Our guide took us into the jungle on horses until we eventually got off and hiked around to see some waterfalls, streams, birds, and dense plant life. They provided us with boots/galoshes so we just charged through ponds and streams as we pleased, but the soles weren’t so great and there was water and algae everywhere so we all slipped numerous times. Allen and Crystal even stopped to take a dip in one of the miniature waterfalls. Eventually we made our way back to the horses and back to the town of Dos Mangas, where we had started the ride from. Then since the town is pretty desolate and we couldn’t find a taxi, we just hitchhiked our way back to Montañita in the back of a pickup truck. Fun stuff. As if we weren’t tired enough we went surfing for an hour after we got back. We were pretty dead after that though, so we met some friends for dinner and watched a movie (Lord of War, or as the DVD says, El Hombre Peligroso) before heading off to sleep.

And that was pretty much the weekend. I took a bunch of pictures, including some of Allen riding a horse with yellow boots, swimming trunks, and a backpack. That’s right ladies, no shirt. Try not to get too hot and bothered…I’ll post the pictures soon.

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