Surfs Up! Montañita and the Ecuadorian Coast

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February 9th 2006

Published: February 17th 2006

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Braden

Sunset at Montañita

This pretty much sums it up. Beautiful town, amazing surf. La Punta´s jagged cliff splits the surf just north of the town giving a good rip with 2-3m swells on an average day. Weeee!!

The Pacific coast... What can I say? It´s gorgeous, just like the rest of this country. Our (Myself, Huns + Mike) over-night bus ride from Quito to the coast was quite an experience. After setting off in a rainstorm, we crawled at 30km/hr through dense fog down 3000m of tiny roads... Occasionally passing ditched busses and trucks (some on the side of the road, others lying further down in gorges) and bunches of little white wooden crosses, at which time Mike declares it´s time to close the curtain on his window. No sleep and 10 hours later we arrive in a coastal town where we switched busses to get to Montañita. A friendly guy named Jose (who I later realized worked at the surf shop in Montañita) led us to the bus we had to take, which proceeded to break down several times in the 30km drive. The driver seemed to think he was able to fix it with nothing more than an Allen Key (while it was still running), and asked Huns to slide his foot over so he could pull up a floor panel and do his thing. He stuck his hand THROUGH the 2 inch crack on the

Montañita

Rainbow at sunset. First time in my life I´ve ever seen the full arc, but it wouldn´t come close to fitting in a single frame.

transmission and screwed around for about 5 minutes before deciding we were good to go. Needless to say the problem wasn´t exactly ¨fixed¨.

Of course, eventually we were picked up by another bus that finally took us to Montañita. The town is unbelievable... I thought places like this existed only in movies. It´s 30 C+ day and night, and our bamboo hostel is only 60 seconds from the beach. The closest thing resembling work to be done in a given day is crawling out of the hammock to go get a beer. It´s possible to wander the entire place barefoot, and shirts are considered over-dressing. The sunsets are amazing (see pics), and the girls are, well, just like the rest of Ecuador, except they´re not wearing clothing. Gringos, Hippies, and Rastas have all flocked to this place, making for an unusual culture. It´s surfing or sunbathing all day long, and drinking and dancing until the middle of the night. It´s a difficult lifestyle to keep up with, soon to get much harder. This weekend is the Full Moon Party, apparently somewhat of a legend in Ecuador. Just a 15 min walk down the beach from here, in Kamala, supposedly

Bus #2 --> Monatñita

Waiting for the replacement

over 1000 ppl will come to take part in a bonfire-lit rave Saturday night.

Well as I write this now, the beach rave has come and gone.. But lots was accomplished in the week in between. I travelled up the coast and hitched-hiked through many small towns and villages, eventually arriving in Puerto Lopez, the gateway to the coastal National Park of Machililla. After a few days there it was back to Montañita for the big party... Too bad the pictures don´t make much sense, it was quite a night. I was dumb enough to pitch my tent in Kamala that night, where my attempt to sleep was completely shit upon by hundreds of people on drugs and very loud electronic music. In other words, it was a great party that started at about 8pm and went until noon. The scene in the morning was truly something to behold... guests asleep on the pool table, bar, hammocks, the beach... stray cats and dogs fighting over leftover food scraps on the table, thousands of empty beer cans...

Luckily Mike had a pre-rolled hangover cure ready by the time I finally rolled out of my tent in the 35 C

Montañita

First swim in the ocean!

sun. After a slow recovery from the previous night, and one last swim in the ocean, we made our way back to Quito on another overnight bus adventure. It´s both of ours last night in Ecuador (which, luckily, falling on a Monday means free rum + coke at our hostal here!). It´s been an amazing few weeks and I know I´ll end up back here one day. Which reminds me, tomorrow is the last day for me to pick up any cheap stuff for you guys! Soccer jerseys? Hammocks (only 8 bucks!), perhaps an Alpaca sweater? You just let me know..

And no, Ché, I can´t pick you up some of THAT. I have to travel through the states...

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